What with farmland changing hands at price levels that would make a Beverly Hills realtor blanch, one could be forgiven for jumping to an obvious conclusion: Farm Country is flush with cash these days. Indeed, based on pure numbers, the statistics are impressive. Midwestern farmland values increased 16 percent in 2012, the third largest gain…  Read More →

I recently phoned members of my geographically far-flung family to give them Thanksgiving greetings and was struck by a common element of our ensuing conversations. From Iowa and Nebraska to Kentucky and Texas, the report was the same: drought, drought and more drought. I thought about that recently while watching the  new documentary, The Dust…  Read More →

Former Purdue University professor Don Huber is no chemo-phobe — he just hates to see a product of science go to waste. LSP’s podcast/PowerPoint presentation on the herbicide glyphosate featuring Huber makes that point. In the presentation, Huber comes across as a scientist who is profoundly disappointed that a sound crop production tool has, in…  Read More →

The U.S. Senate passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill this week. While it’s far from perfect, specific amendments related to conservation and accountability that were passed during the floor vote give one hope that the voices of average citizens can be heard inside the Beltway. Let’s hope this is a sign of things…  Read More →

History Professor James E. McWilliams’ recent doubled-barreled attack on sustainable livestock production and the local food movement in general is so contradictory and full of factual holes, it’s tough to know where to begin to pick it apart. But it must be picked apart, since it has appeared in the New York Times and subsequently…  Read More →