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 […]
It’s been eight long, commentary-filled months since readers who’ve dropped letters, e-mails and napalm on me have had their say.
Sorry, but time screams by when you read, write and nap as much as I do. The market crash, bank bailout, election and my views on each brought torrents of mail.
For example, Dan H. […]
Despite over-promised and underpaid by millions of dollars, the 100 or so producer-members of Meadowbrook Farms Cooperative said little during a recent public meeting the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain, Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration held to discuss the Feb. 4 closure of the coop’s Rantoul, Ill., hog slaughtering plant.
Startling remarks
The few farmers who […]
One the biggest drawbacks of living in rural America is the high cost and low quality of connectivity: antiquated dial-up Internet speeds, costly satellite television and cellular phone service that cackles more than Grandma’s hens.
Congress hopes to address these needs in the Obama stimulus package.
Presently, the House-passed version of the plan holds $6 […]
Although Barack Obama has been president but a few days we can already say with certainty — unlike before his inauguration — he cannot fly, leap tall buildings or walk on water.
Those feats, however, are chopped liver compared to cracking the good old boy cabal at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Buckling
So far, say […]
The new president wants Congress to approve upwards of $800 billion in cash and tax credits by mid-February to, hopefully, stem the worst economic slide any American under 70 has experienced.
And that’s in addition to the yet-to-be spent $350 billion from the $700 billion, October 2008 bank bailout.
How do you spend $1.1 trillion […]
On Jan. 8, 2008, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs predicted crude oil prices would top $200 a barrel by summer, then slip lower but remain well above $100 through 2011.
What looked smart then looks ridiculous now.
Today, crude prices are far closer to zero than $200 and the spectacularly wrong investment banker, like […]
If conventional leadership and bureaucratic competency had a face, it would look exactly like Thomas J. Vilsack: round as an apple pie, chin disappearing under sagging cheeks, graying (and amply present) hair.
President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Vilsack, the two-term (1998-2006) Iowa governor, to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture is as safe and sound […]
It’s the end of the year, but columnist Alan Guebert still has unanswered questions.
(Author’s note: The following column was first published the week of Christmas 1998. Now, by tradition, it returns. Merry Christmas. –Alan)
The Christmas tree was a scrub cedar hacked from the edge of the woods that bordered the farm.
Big-bulbed lights, strung in barber pole fashion, generated almost as much heat as the nearby wood […]
