Big Ag’s weak hand in nitrate fight
In May 2013 Iowa implemented the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, a program that all but admitted the state’s ag runoff was a growing problem that required joint attention from farmers, local communities and the state.
The COOL facts: American people love it, others don’t
Country of origin labeling, or COOL, for meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts sold in the U.S. has been kicked around by the courts, politicians, international trade panels and special interest farm groups since it became law in 2008.
Winter from the window
Short snaps of deep cold were not rare but all were deeply unwelcome. The cows, the hired men, the plumbing, the shivering calves, the machinery—everyone and everything—moved slower or not at all when temperatures fell to zero or below.
Patterns: Welcome back, foodie
We didn’t know it back then but everyone on the big southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth was a foodie.
2015 is dirt’s big year to shine
This year, center your resolutions around soil health.
You’re right, I’m wrong… Next!
Readers respond to Alan Guebert's columns from second half of 2014.
Crop insurance: Flawed and fixable
Federally subsidized crop insurance is the elephant in the Farm Bill pantry and anyone who had any role in pushing the law through the zoo called Congress knows it.
Groundhog Day again and again
Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, Christmas in the windshield and, given the glacial pace of key policy decisions awaiting resolution in Washington, D.C., it’s just another Groundhog Day out here in rural America.
On immigration, Congress needs to do what we elected them to do: Lead
If you ran your farm or ranch like the White House and Congress run the federal government, your corn would never get planted and your cows would be long gone.
Quantitative spinning: It’s in the numbers
Against all odds, economics, the dismal science, has become even more dismal.
