Considering taxes, trade and biofuels
Outside of accuracy, honesty and tight prose, the rules established (way back in May 1993) for these 700-word weekly adventures were few.
Matter doesn’t always matter
A month ago, Fred Kirschenmann, distinguished fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, preached to the preachers of the Northern Plains Conference of the United Church of Christ in Bismarck.
Dairy self-help program self-delusional
Three years ago come July 1, 70 percent or so of American dairy farmers began taxing themselves to fund a program the industry dubbed Cooperatives Working Together, or CWT.
U.S. farm groups say ‘no more’ in WTO
When the Senate confirmed Susan C. Schwab as the Bush Administration's Trade Representative June 8 - the second trade rep in just 13 months - it did so by voice vote, an uncommon occurrence for the usually-on-the-record body.
Busting the great ag export myth
Former Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman couldn't stop for a cup of coffee in farm and ranch country without waxing romantically on how "1 in 4 acres of American farm production is exported.
My summer as a kitchen migrant
Sometime in the early summer of 1965 I migrated from my mother's hot kitchen and the family's enormous garden to our farm's sweltering hayfields and crowded milking parlor.
The fact and fiction of fast food
America's food industry, like the nation's church leaders, spent much of May wringing its hands over, by all accounts, pieces of poorly written, poorly acted fiction.
Limits to ethanol’s wild success exist
When biofuel promoters begin to extol the virtues of ethanol, it's sometimes difficult to determine if their excitement is powered by corn-based fuel or corn-based liquor.
Hacking away at 2007 (Iraqi) farm bill
On May 8, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns took the Bush administration's first formal step toward the 2007 farm bill.
Bye to Harvard’s only ag economist
The news of John Kenneth Galbraith's April 29 passing brought but a moment's sadness before it swept me back to the book-lined study of his home where, in mid-June 1986, he availed himself to a lengthy interview so I could prepare a profile of him for Farm Journal's Top Producer magazine.
