A late September, 300-kilometre drive through the sunny centre of northern and central Illinois reveals blue sky, yellowing fields and not one roaring red, green or silver combine gathering in any of the anticipated abundant crops. “We’re a solid 10 days from corn harvest,” a central Illinois farmer relates in conversation later that day. “Delayed […] Read more
Stories by Alan Guebert
Proposed merger of grain giants betrays firm’s Prairie origins
As American grocery buyers await a Federal Trade Commission verdict on Kroger’s two-year-old, US$24.6 billion bid to buy competitor Albertsons, the European Commission took just 35 days to give its blessing to the merger between two of the world’s largest grain merchandisers, Bunge and Viterra. The mega-deal, valued at about $34 billion at the time […] Read more
Avian flu in cows and poultry continues to fly high in the U.S.
Few states or nations put on a dairy cattle show like the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, where 50,000 visitors and vendors from nearly 100 countries will see 1,800 owners exhibiting 2,500 or so of the best dairy cattle in the galaxy. Organizers of this year’s Expo, however, are working overtime to keep one […] Read more
Import tariffs are never a good idea: ours, theirs, anyone’s
Milton Friedman, the patron saint of free markets and a founder of the Nobel-adorned Chicago school of economics, took a very dim view of all tariffs — ours, theirs, anyone’s. Writing in Capitalism and Freedom, his 1962 best seller, Friedman explained that if “unilateral free trade” is the goal, “reciprocal negotiations of tariff reductions … […] Read more
Rain makes lower grain prices: it’s a tried and true formula
Rain makes grain, and two mid-August U.S. Department of Agriculture reports offered this year’s first in-the-field look at how much corn, soybeans and wheat, as well as sugar and cotton, that American farmers will grow in this wet, grain-making year. On Aug. 12, USDA estimated that the 2024 U.S. corn crop would total 15.1 billion […] Read more
Trump’s deportation plan would gut American ag labour force
Nearly 45 percent of all agricultural workers in the United States — 950,000 of an estimated 2.2 million farm workers — are “unauthorized” migrants working illegally on American farms and ranches. All would be deported under the plan former President Donald Trump has been trumpeting since before securing the Republican nomination for president last month. […] Read more
![There’s a good chance the [U.S. Supreme] court’s judges — eight of which graduated from either Harvard or Yale law schools — might very well determine whether your crop insurance claim is valid or if your neighbour can legally spread manure on his hilly pasture next to your family’s well. | Getty Images](https://static.producer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/17170539/10-US-Supreme-Court-GettyImages-1467652722-660x420.jpg)
U.S. courts poised to take over agricultural policy decisions
On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 40 years of legal precedence and redirected federal power from government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the courts and Congress. Big Ag loved the news. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association “celebrated the ruling,” and Big Meat’s lobbyist saw it as the bullet to […] Read more
Proposed overhaul of U.S. gov’t has implications for farm bill
This year, like last year, is a farm bill year and this year, like last year, probably won’t deliver any farm bill. The reason is the oldest one in Washington, D.C.: politics. Most congressional Republicans aren’t interested in passing any bipartisan farm and food assistance bill when they believe a delay might deliver a Republican-controlled […] Read more
![[U.S.] federal crop insurance is beginning to resemble federal dairy policy: arcane, costly and incomprehensible to all but the subsidized few. | File photo](https://static.producer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/02131356/10-drought-wheat-660x420.jpg)
Smoke, mirrors and deceit drive U.S. crop insurance changes
A longstanding complaint in the United States is the utter incomprehensibility of federal milk pricing policy. For years we’ve joked — mostly through our tears — that only four people in the world understand its complexity and, worse, not one of them is a dairy farmer. As if to prove our point, the U.S. Department […] Read more
Mexico’s election delivers new leader to tackle old problems
While Americans still face a long season of political campaigning, more than 80 other nations have completed their federal elections this year or are about to go to the polls. France’s general elections will be held June 30, the United Kingdom’s on July 4, and Venezuela on July 28. The European Union completed parliamentary elections […] Read more
