The year isn’t five months old and hog farmers already have had a year to forget: a sick global economy sickening pork demand, costlier feed and a call-it-whatever flu that’s lopped $15 off hog prices in the blink of an eye.
Indeed, 2009 has been so bad — on May 5, the National Pork Producers […]
The biggest maker or breaker of business in rural America is not Washington rulemakers, state environmental agencies or local taxing bodies. Instead, it’s usually the local bank. A bank’s collective fairness and wisdom can be seen from Main Street to surrounding farms.
Not so with the money center and Wall Street banks. Citibank, Bank of […]
When David Chicoine explains his new, part-time job — one of 11 members of the board of directors at seed giant Monsanto Co. — it all sounds very smart, very modern, very…good.
“Big companies like Monsanto,” related Chicoine in an April 21 telephone interview, “have contacts anywhere they find talent. Their only interest is high […]
If you had a nickel for every magazine story that detailed the best ideas to pass your farm or ranch on to your children and grandchildren, you’d have one wealthy farm or ranch to pass on.
If, however, you had a nickel for every magazine story that detailed what economic, environmental and political actions are […]
American farmers and global food makers have had more than a decade to get comfortable with wild, year-to-year swings in crop acres brought by decoupled, “freedom to farm” ag policies, an 800 percent boom in biofuel production and an increasingly hungry export market for American meat and grain.
A punch
Still, the 2009 Prospective Planting Report, […]
Only Wall Street bankers and Capitol Hill lawmakers can sport such a sorry record and still keep their jobs.
More than 40 years ago, my father and his good friend, C. John, had a three-letter code they often tossed back and forth when enjoying their shared passions of fishing, camping and winning nickels playing euchre.
“AIG,” one would say whereupon the other would reply immediately, “You better believe it; AIG.”
Old meaning
AIG meant “Ain’t […]
A sudden surge of spring-like warmth put a hint of green in my backyard just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Whether the lovely weather lasts or if it’s just the luck of the Irish matters little because, clearly, winter is doomed.
So, too, seem the hog-growing farmers of Meadowbrook Farms, the Rantoul, Ill., pork […]
Of the many talents Americans — and especially American politicians — have acquired in the last 25 years, coupling fact with fiction to create baloney might be the most creative.
For example, in 1996 the Republican-led Congress created Freedom to Farm, that year’s farm bill, to decouple farm programs from set-asides, a grain reserve, taxpayer […]
If it’s even partly true that you’re known by the company you keep, then the farmer-loved ethanol business got a lot less lovable Feb. 8 when Valero Energy Corp., the largest crude oil refiner in North America, announced its intent to purchase five of the choicest plants owned by mega-biofuel maker, mega-bankrupt VeraSun Energy.
Should […]
