If ascendant Republicans act on what they say was the clear message sent by voters Nov. 2, the 112th Congress ain’t gonna be a tea party. Oh, something will boil, all right. It may be the fat most politicians claim is stored in all those pork barrels on Capitol Hill. After that, maybe some of
Boiling Water — But Not For Tea
Corporate Universities Toe The Line
ASeptember piece inThe Economist,makes the bold statement that “America’s universities lost their way badly in the era of easy money. If they do not find it again, they may go the way of GM,” the global automotive giant that became a global lemon in less than two generations. The Economistlists some incriminating facts: While “median
Ohio Livestock Growers Caged By Farm Groups – for Sep. 9, 2010
What was to be a clever, voter-sanctioned effort to fence out the animals- are-people-crowd in Ohio last year is, depending on your perspective, either a progressive way for farm and animal rights groups to work together toward humane livestock production or a total sellout of livestock producers by Big Ag to the Humane Society of
The $40-Billion Potash Pie – for Sep. 2, 2010
American farmers hardly noticed when, in mid- August, news broke that Australian-based BHP Billiton was willing to pay nearly $40 billion for the world’s largest fertilizer producer, Saskatchewan’s PotashCorp. The disinterest was honest; after all, who was BHP Billiton and what did it want with a Canadian fertilizer firm in the steady, if not dull,
Fair Food, Circus Fare – for Aug. 19, 2010
As the county and state fair season spreads across America, farmers, ranchers and producer groups from Maryland and Montana will cook rib-eyes, whip up omelettes, grill chicken, barbecue pork steaks, butter sweet corn and pour thick milkshakes for their non-farming customers from Baltimore to Billings and nearly everywhere in between. This fresh, wholesome goodness will
New Game, New Rules
Watching Big Pork and Big Beef respond to proposed USDA rules to “clarify conduct that violates the P&S (Packers and Stockyards) Act” is like watching Wall Street bankers: they find it impossible to pull their hands out of your pockets long enough to pull themselves out of the mess they’ve made. That’s a good explanation
Beef Checkoff To NCBA: Drop Dead
“NCBA just doesn’t get it.” In a toughly worded statement June 22, the executive committee of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the group created by Congress to collect and oversee the $1-per-head beef checkoff, served notice that it strongly backed the independence of the Federation of State Beef Councils in the ongoing debate over the checkoff’s
Trade Talks Stuck In Past
The surest way to confirm if anyone in Washington, D. C. is telling you the truth about trade is to watch their lips: if they move, they’re stretching the blanket one way or the other. Of course, not many lips have moved on trade last year or this year. Indeed, on the White House to-do
“Chicken Feed” Sums Up U. S. Poultry Returns
In a morning session of the May 21 U. S. Department of Justice-Department of Agriculture workshop on ag and antitrust enforcement, Alabama poultry grower Garry Staples told officials he expected “retaliation” from the firm he grows chickens for because of his participation in that event’s discussion of poultry contracts. Not so, opined Assistant Attorney General
Nothing To Hide
Forty-five years may have dimmed a frame or two of memory, but I can still see my father emptying small bags of flour-like powder into a five-gallon bucket and then, slowing stirring in a trickle of water until the two ingredients combined to make a chalky, white cream. The bags contained the still-new, pre-emergent herbicide
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
