Soybean farmers: Living on a prayer
As the cold, wet planting season of 2008 slips into mid-May, corn and soybean farmers are grousing about weather delays, the likelihood of reduced...
‘Bloated’ farm bill on shaky ground
Since 1981, when I picked up my first pen, paper and paycheck as a journalist, six farm bills have come and gone. With them...
Farm bill politics are a train wreck
In the long, glorious history of America, it’s unlikely that April 22, 2008, will be remembered as anything other than just another balmy, bureaucratic...
Not to worry about winter baggage
Spring finally found the legs to arrive in central Illinois nearly a month after the calendar alerted us to be on the lookout for...
U.S. economy is ‘eating seed corn’
American humorist Will Rogers once joked that “there’s no trick” in coming up with political wisecracks “when you have the whole government working for...
Don’t complain with your mouth full
The last time the hefty price of wheat was a dinner conversation topic the then-secretary of agriculture, Earl Butz, hit the road to deflect...
A sap shouting into the hurricane
Today’s barely functioning cash grain and livestock markets will soon be getting their price signals from the world’s largest single, for-profit, around-the-clock money, grain, meat and metals futures trading operation.
A sap shouting into the hurricane
One fine spring evening 35 or so years ago, I rang the doorbell of the home of the young lady I intended to ask...
Government playing the patsy again
If either you or I get in a high-stakes poker game and we lose our shirts, an absolute certain bet is that the government will not bail us out.
Food inspection a big, germy joke
When a former National Football League player known for his dirty play was asked if he ever “threw” a game — purposely helped the opposing team win — the player replied by stating the obvious.
