Katrina’s agricultural effects are secondary to summer drought’s
As Hurricane Katrina's smashing blows fell on the Gulf Coast, commodity traders did what they always do when uncertainty hits the pits: They sold.
Summer’s end is filled with yellow
The end of central Illinois' heat-stoked, rain-starved summer is being whispered in the yellow leaves rattling on my backyard's black walnut trees.
Court piles on meatpackers’ power
Killed the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. Largely gutted the U.S. Department of Agriculture's mandate to "promote fair and competitive trading practices for the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture.
Einstein influences federal budget
While Albert Einstein proposed the theory of relativity nearly a century ago, today's Congress and White House have perfected its application.
What voters want in farm policy
Baseball has its winter hot-stove league when teams and players wheel and deal in hopes of improving their World Series chances.
D.C. sausage grinder running wild
In its rush to blow out of steamy Washington D.C. for a month of cooler temperatures and cooler tempers, Congress ran the legislative meat grinder hard in the final days of July to crank out enough fat-laden sausage to sate even the hungriest special interest.
Uncle Honey: dangerous, but sweet
The last week of July and first week of August were always the longest and hottest weeks of the year on the southern Illinois' farm of my youth.
Dairy farmers mooch it up in Maine
Most freelance writers are born moochers.
With no corporate travel budget behind them and a flood-or-dust income stream in front of them, the art of mooching - traveling, dining, drinking and vacationing on other peoples' tabs - quickly becomes a way of life.
Eminent domain decision: no shock, and qualified, if you follow history
To hear the major newspapers and farm groups tell it, the world of private property rights collapsed June 23.
Reporter moves to different ‘beat’
Hemingway went to Paris to discover, he once explained, if "I could write two good sentences."
While there, however, Papa wrote two good books, The Sun Also Rises and Farewell to Arms.
