Readers keeping up with current vents can gather from the news that a couple of front runners in the US presidential race have something in common; It’s Goldman Sachs. I wasn’t invited, but unless it’s Warren Buffet I don’t know what anyone would talk about that could possibly be worth the $670,000 speakers fees Hillary collected from Goldman Sachs, just as I don’t know how I would justify asking to borrow one million dollars from Goldman Sachs to Read More …
By Richard Oswald After nearly 66 years of life on earth, watching my grandmother, mother, and wife, with a frying pan skillet, suddenly I learned one day I had not a clue how to make good gravy. And so I struggled. Then, in a single chicken-fried-steak moment, it all came home to me. Half the secret to good gravy is milk. I’m talking about white gravy, salty flour and grease gravy, the kind you eat on biscuits or Read More …
While farmers chase the next crop, the agriculture game has changed. International corporations have reduced their own risk by passing it along to farmers. “Free” trade (like the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership), seed patents, and contract farming for hogs and chickens are some of the ways Big Ag has standardized a once-diverse industry. Photo by Nate Kauffman Playing fetch at Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Forest. Playing fetch with a Labrador is a little like farming. I throw the Read More …
County of Origin Labeling didn’t hurt the Canadian cattle market, a new study of U.S. meat prices says. Big meatpackers would just to prefer to keep customers in the dark about where their meat comes from. The American people seem to be ready to take off the blindfold and see where our meat is coming from. Your family is hungry. They rely on you to feed them. And you want to provide them with healthy, safe, good-quality food Read More …
Chemical weed killers have become a big part of mainstream, commercial agriculture, saving farmers time and back-breaking labor. But they also come with a cost, as loss of effectiveness forces greater use just to keep up. Now there’s a move afoot to add new patents to some of the old chemicals. When I was a kid, I worked next to my folks pulling weeds from around fences and buildings on the farmstead every Saturday afternoon. Those were the Read More …
Driving down the middle of the road is a common practice in rural areas where back roads are marked mostly by two bare tracks. Meeting requires that passing cars yield by splitting the track. I remember once a long time ago when passing neighbors crunched bumpers on a gravel road. The law was called to establish liability for the crash. When a deputy arrived, he surveyed the scene. He determined no one was hurt, no tempers inflamed, no Read More …
Mid-sized farmers are stuck in the middle – too conventional and “toxic” for the foodies, too small to matter to Big Ag corporations. How do you participate in the food debate without becoming part of the menu? Or, with friends like these, who needs aliens? By Richard Oswald Farmers in America have a saying. “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” This reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where extraterrestrials visiting from outer space Read More …
Looking back over 100+ years of family farm history, attitude, sympathetic lenders, luck, and most of all family relationships are what average farmers rely on for their survival. Corporate partnerships don’t have much to offer us. In governments eyes, bigger has always been better–even when bigger meant corporate control, more pollution, less competition, and higher costs. Realistically, even though US agriculture seems a national icon, corporations, some native to foreign countries, are replacing people like me. They couldn’t Read More …