Farm and Food File: Mad over mad cow disease testing
Once, while researching the amount of grain the USDA's Commodity Credit Corp. had in storage, I hit the brick-solid bureaucratic wall of silence.
Why may ethanol be imported?
The harder anyone scratches the Central American Free Trade Agreement pushed by the White House, the worse the smell in American agriculture gets.
Made in America? Yeah, right
After a sip of (Brazilian) orange juice and a nibble of bacon (from a market hog farrowed in Canada), U.
Talking the truth about trade
You know you're far off the reality map when the American Farm Bureau's former president, Iowan Dean Kleckner, publicly praises the Humane Society of the United States for its support of Central American Free Trade Agreement.
School’s in session across Potomac
If you think schoolchildren dread summer school, consider the eight-week summer session agriculture's friends in Congress face.
Supreme confusion over checkoff
After the U.S. Supreme Court surprised both sides of the beef checkoff court fight May 23 by declaring the $80-million-per-year mandatory tax constitutional, opponents and proponents alike offered a dizzying display of spin.
Got debt? Milk giant downgraded
The finances of Dairy Farmers of America are souring faster than cream in a July sun, according to a May 9 Moody's Investors Service report.
Farmers’ windfall is breath of fresh air
Standing atop the sweeping farm ridge 70 miles north of Berlin, the stiff wind off the Baltic Sea painted my cheeks apple red in minutes.
Your turn: Some readers can really write
Thirteen years ago this week a thin packet containing four agricultural columns hit the cluttered desks of 124 newspaper editors and publishers in 14 Midwestern states.
Broken promises of rural development
It happened again the other week at a local public forum on agriculture.
The panel of speakers included me, two farmers and a state Farm Bureau economist.
