Farm & Food File
A syndicated column by Alan Guebert
Special Interests
The Least of Your Problems
Posted on February 24, 2014
Early February was not a good time to be an American carnivore.
First, on Saturday, Feb. 8, Rancho Feeding Co. of Petaluma, CA, announced it was recalling 8.7 million pounds of beef carcasses and cuts. That’s virtually every pound of the company’s 2013 throughput.
The reason for the recall, explained the Feb. 11 Los Angeles Times, was […]
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Posted on February 15, 2014
If you’re an ag-dependent advertising agency, a commodity organization hired hand, or an ag journalist who can’t do math, commodity checkoffs are a gift that just keeps on giving.
The most recent checkoff gift comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General. On Jan. 31, the OIG released a 29-page report on […]
How’d you like a buggy whip?
Posted on November 10, 2013
Henry Ford heard the jeers for years before his horseless carriage remade culture forever. Orville and Wilbur Wright were called bird brains before their dreams carried them over a North Carolina sand dune and mankind to distant galaxies.
They had thousands of predecessors. Archimedes was thought to have a screw loose. The Vatican saw Galileo as […]
Fixed bayonets
Posted on September 29, 2013
So just what was Congress, and especially, the U.S. House of Representatives, doing when it entered the final week of its high-speed game of chicken with the White House and three out of four Americans who said loudly and clearly that they did not want a government shutdown?
One part of the answer, the political part, […]
Shut up, butt out, get lost
Posted on September 1, 2013
On Aug. 27, the late summer heat of Washington, D.C. was spit-roasting locals and tourists alike up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Inside the U.S. District Courthouse, a half-block off the main thoroughfare and just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, however, all anyone from Mexico to Canada could talk about was COOL, the American law that […]
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Honest question: What does keeping the seat Dem do for Iowa agriculture, its farmers, and environment? Honest answer: Same thing the Dem Sec. of Ag from Iowa has done last two years-more ethanol, more dirty water, & more Big Ag. https://t.co/rwouHWCQiq
@daswenson @RiverRaccoon, can carbon be sequestered in corn-soy commodity system in drained/tiled fields? If not, doesn’t this one fact alone take most of Iowa and IL crop farmers out of the carbon game (yes, game) before it begins?
Cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits would have far greater impact on rural America than cuts to farm program payments. https://t.co/lc6SN65Jbn