‘… to operate as needed’ is not what’s needed for many farmers
Farm groups, commodity organizations and most ag checkoffs have spent 25 years and billions dollars refining and repeating their modern message: American agriculture is...
My budget plan: Annex Canada
Sure, Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has a 10-year plan to take this country back from the poor, the...
Finally seeing the reverence of land
For 35 years I have returned to Indian Farm, when I can, to replenish what it first gave me as a child.
To NCBA leaders, silence is golden
By law and by USDA's failure "to restore operational integrity" to the checkoff, NCBA remains the single, biggest benefactor of checkoff cash.
Real ag agenda seems to be football and pheasants
In Congress, the House aggies aren't exactly tied up with policy debates to address, say, today's soaring food prices, the nation's perilously thin food stocks or a dysfunctional federal dairy policy.
Will all tomorrow’s farms be organic?
Families, careers, whole lives take turns that are completely unpredictable. I mean, one minute you’re looking out the window of your third-floor college dorm...
CCC — the nation’s pantry — is Mother Hubbard bare
It's not the choices you make in the bad times that usually cause you the most trouble. It's the choices you make in the good times that often lead to the biggest disasters.
The circus comes to town
As has been noted here before, most journalists get into the writing game because they cannot do math. I don't mean the hard stuff...
Let’s take a meeting at the USDA
On Dec. 20, 17 people from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including Secretary Tom Vilsack, 10 from non-governmental organizations, 10 from seed and food...
Forecast for March: Very, very hot
After hiring into the market newsletter biz 30 years ago, my new bosses informed me that I'd sink or swim on how well I...
