As the end of June edges into sight, my mind floats back to those hot, long days on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth when noon dinner brought everyone together for the day’s big meal.
Afterward, all the adults napped until precisely 1 p.m.
Uncle Honey, my father’s uncle who spent 20 of […]
Four days before the seventh and final “listening session” June 1 to gather producer comments on NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced USDA would host six additional meetings for the public “to voice their concerns about the current NAIS system and offer potential solutions.”
The extra meetings are […]
When I was drawing a paycheck as a cocksure marketing advisor and newsletter writer nearly 30 years ago, my colleagues and I often explained our hedging mistakes by simply declaring our advice had been “ahead of the market.”
We were right, the line of malarkey went, but the slicksters in the futures markets were too […]
When the international trade portion of your resume is as thin as Ron Kirk’s — you do remember that Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, is now U.S. Trade Representative, don’t you? — it’s likely you’d stress personal ideals over professional accomplishments when talking about your new job.
Kirk did just that in a May […]
If you want to see just how badly broken America’s health care system is come to the country.
Be careful during your visit, however, because rural America — where just nine percent of the nation’s doctors serve 17 percent of its citizens scattered across 80 percent of its geography — is not an ideal place […]
A month or so ago, the manager of this one-dog farmette clipped the coaxial cable that linked our rural home to the yellers at CNBC, CNN, Fox and the 264 other big-haired television airheads bloviating about other bloviators.
Our children, both fulfilling their destinies on the East Coast and therefore no part of the coming […]
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 […]
