On Jan. 7, the day after Congress certified Donald J. Trump’s election as the next president of the United States, the U.S. “Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield, (California) … descending on businesses where day labourers and field workers gather.” The impact of the raids was immediate. “We’re in the middle of our citrus […] Read more
Stories by Alan Guebert
U.S. rural economy to be ‘squeezed, hobbled, slowed’
By far the biggest lender to U.S. farmers, ranchers and rural businesses is the Farm Credit System, whose four banks and 56 associations hold nearly 50 per cent of all debt in rural America. What’s more, the largest lender within the massive FCS is CoBank. In mid-2024, CoBank reported an “average loan volume” of US$149.9 […] Read more
Just how expensive is U.S. food compared to other categories?
Nearly every autopsy of Vice-President Kamala Harris’s stinging White House defeat begins with some variation of the phrase, “voters pointed to the rising price of food as their chief concern…” True or not — and more on that later — the Trump campaign tied that tin can so tightly to Harris that everywhere she went […] Read more
Deportation, tariffs expected as Trump’s second act
Every pre-election poll for the U.S. presidential race saw it as a too-close-to-call nail biter. Not one predicted the sweeping victory posted by former, now President-Elect Donald J. Trump. How did all miss the coming rout? And rout it was. Trump swept all seven of the swing states, a feat no candidate had pulled off […] Read more
U.S. ag policy: buy more deck chairs or chart different course
Calls for US$20 billion in “emergency” farm program payments won’t go away now that the proposal’s principal audience, voters, have done their duty. The idea’s chief promoters, congressional Republicans, have built a wobbly case for the aid, and lame ducks or loud winners, their quacking will continue. Should they succeed, federal agriculture subsidies tied to the […] Read more
Alternative diesel fuels the law of unintended consequences
In our increasingly urgent quest to clean up our climate-altering, carbon-fuelled culture, biodiesel and renewable diesel have become two new darlings of alternative fuel advocates. While diesel fuel may be diesel fuel, biodiesel and renewable diesel are not the same thing. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, both are “produced from the same renewable […] Read more
‘New U.S.-China trade war could cost farmers billions’
Let’s pause to consider the-above headline. First, it’s a quote; I didn’t write it. That’s important because the third rail of today’s ag journalism — the deadly, high voltage topic that can burn your career — is Donald J. Trump. Question a Trump-related topic such as tax cuts, tariffs or immigration and you’re quickly tagged […] Read more
Big Mac bites Big Meat over alleged ‘artificially higher prices’
If you buy nearly two billion pounds of beef a year — an on-the-hoof equivalent of seven million cattle — you’d think you’d get the best deal ever from your suppliers. You are, after all, the world’s largest red meat buyer. Think again, says McDonald’s. On Oct. 4, it sued the big four meat packers […] Read more
American agricultural exports continue their downward slide
When you set a record ag trade deficit for the third consecutive year, the decline isn’t an aberration or a coincidence. It is, in fact, growing proof that a key element of your national ag policy is headed in the wrong direction. And, according to an Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade report released by the […] Read more
Massive Nebraska feedlot ‘just the opposite of what we need’
Like farmers and ranchers, veterinarians love to pour concrete. Many build customized facilities dedicated to their animal health mission: examination rooms, operating theaters, cattle chutes, holding pens and loading docks. Three Canada-based vets, however, are pouring enough concrete in far southwestern Nebraska to cover what they say will be a square mile — 640 acres […] Read more
