A golden goose for chicken feed
Every week for 19 years this 170 square-foot, two-dog, one-person office has declared its complete devotion to numbers. For example, just last week we...
Bigger programs, bigger boondoggles
In mid-June, the best guessers on Capitol Hill handicapped a probable 2012 Farm bill this way: either the Senate passes its version by the...
Some hot numbers in cold times
As the world stumbles toward a summer of financial winter, one part of the American economy continues its merry, five-year waltz: U.S. ag exports...
Go ahead and bet against Europe
When I hopped on the ag journalism jet in 1981, the European Union (known then as the European Economic Union) forecast it would spend...
Take a guess how this is going to end
Since you speak English as well as anyone, perhaps you understand the working paragraph of a May 19 Washington Post column that explains the...
Big numbers should trigger hard questions
Hard numbers, hard questions and even harder answers.
The wisdom of hard work on the farm: ‘It won’t kill you’
It is the universal German Lutheran explanation for all the unnecessary sweat generated by farm folks since the Garden of Eden, "Besides, it doesn't kill us."
Sugar water or Kool-Aid?
Alan Guebert reacts to the recently passed Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012.
USDA’s unused case to push own rule
In a striking, two-and-a-half page analysis that ran counter to department leanings, the chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture strongly objected to...
The best ag economist I ‘never’ met
Before I was lucky enough to keep myself in suds and my family in socks with this weekly effort, my previous boss liked to...
