Like any chain, today’s ubiquitous “supply chains” are only as strong as their weakest links. We again learned this elemental lesson last year, when the rapidly exploding Covid-19 pandemic swept the nation’s streets, sidewalks, and pantries clean of cars, people, and groceries. Less evident are today’s still-broken links in the global food supply chain. For
Opinion: ‘The true cost of food’
Study says nearly two-thirds of food costs aren’t properly accounted for
Comment: The actual costs of the ‘industrial mind’
Human ‘cleverness’ can’t outweigh nature, at least not for long
In an essay in his new book, Hogs Are Up, Wes Jackson, founder of the Land Institute near Salina, Kansas, and a shrewd observer of U.S. agriculture, revisits a speech he gave in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in August 2009 to mark the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev’s famous visit to the Roswell Garst farm. During
Comment: Worker wages are not the cause of higher food prices
Big companies complain about worker wages but the data doesn’t support them
After my first year at the Big U, I returned to the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth for a summer of work. The first task, however, was to ask my father to double my hourly pay from 50 cents an hour, the amount I’d been paid through high school, to $1 per hour
Comment: Ag groups make a united, hollow call on meatpackers to play nice
Too many cattle producer divisions are easy for packers to exploit
On May 17, six farm groups joined voices to call on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Congress, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to ensure a “more financially sustainable situation for cattle feeders and cow-calf producers.” That’s make-nice farm talk for “Meatpackers are skinning cattlemen so badly now that we six, not-usually-friendly groups ask
Comment: Big Agbiz’s big ‘price-fixing’ settlements need big fix
When a massive fine is peanuts to a big company, there’s a problem reforming its behaviour
In a now too-common story in agriculture, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) last month agreed to pay farmers $45 million (all figures U.S. funds) to settle what the March 13 Wall Street Journal described as “price-fixing allegations levelled at its peanut-processing division.” While $45 million is, indeed, peanuts to ADM — its estimated 2020 revenue will
Comment: Letting go now that you’re gone
An expanded U.S. House Agriculture Committee means a wider-ranging discussion
After Collin Peterson, the former chairman of the U.S. House Ag Committee, lost his November 2020 re-election bid to Republican challenger Michelle Fischbach, the 15-term congressman packed 194 boxes with office material and Capitol Hill memories and returned to his native Minnesota. The memorabilia included stacks of paper, piles of walnut plaques, one well-used office
Comment: The best way to start is to start
Undoing decades of harm will take time and concerted effort
Forty years ago, two editors at Successful Farming magazine, Gene Johnston and Dean Houghton, won most major ag journalism awards with a story titled “Who will kill the hogs?” The piece (not available online) tracked a new, potent shift just beginning to hit: Local meat packers were being squeezed for hogs and markets by other,
Comment: Questions surround carbon sequestration
Answers are needed if markets are going to function properly
You might not think so, if the local coffee shop is your guide, but farmers think climate change is real. In fact, notes the December 2020 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, 58 per cent of Iowa farmers and landowners now agree that climate change is both occurring and is caused by either human activity
Comment: First USDA quick fix. CRP expansion and reform
Incoming U.S. agriculture secretary has signalled a boost could be coming to the long-standing program
On his way out the door last month, former House Ag Committee chairman Collin Peterson, just off a hammering re-election defeat, offered the nation one final idea: the incoming secretary of agriculture should be empowered to enrol up to 50 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) over the next five years. Yes, 50
Comment: ‘Why are you giving extreme voices so much attention?’
Taking a break from a long-standing tradition is a sign of the divisive times
Around this time of year, I usually feature comments from readers whose views differ from those found here the previous 50 or so weeks. At least that’s how it has been for at least 25 years. Not this year, however, because I received a reader email Dec. 9 that asked me to stop highlighting these
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
