Robbers and Theives (c)

By Richard Oswald Robbers and thieves won’t let me be, they want all of it just the same My land, my animals, my seeds– they even want my name Land is getting awfully high, an acre is like treasure But take away this poor dirt farm and my life will have no measure Robbers and thieves won’t let me be, they want all of it just the same My land, my animals, my seeds– they even want my Read More …

The Comstock Report

David Kruse President, ComStock Investments (with permission to reproduce) Copyright 2011@ CommStock Investments, Inc., David Kruse Someone gleaning through old Commstock Reports found this one that was remarkedly prophetic in context of the changes in economic events that have unfolded since. I have been told that sometimes I am too far ahead of the comfortable consensus and it may have seemed that way in 2003, but events have certainly caught up to what I forecast. This report, in Read More …

Finite

by Richard Oswald Futures traders say “Rain makes grain” but it takes a whole lot more than rain to build the heads, pods and cobs of everything we grow. Growing a crop is much the same as building a factory. Both require energy and materiel. Factories, any factory, will wear out if not kept up. It all requires maintenance. In order to pay that cost farms and ranches need to earn a fair return on investment and labor. Read More …

U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance;

Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes Executive Director Seeking to help U. S. farmers and ranchers or bent on selling the industrial model to a skeptical public? When I first saw the list of the founding members of the new U. S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, all sorts of alarm bells went off. The list includes such groups as; American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), American Soybean Association (ASA), Cattlemen’s Beef Board(CBB), Federation of State Beef Councils (FSBC), National Cattlemen’s Beef Read More …

US Farmers and Rancher Alliance (USFRA): The Veeder Pool of Public Policy

by Randy Stevenson, President The value of history is the lessons learned from it. In looking at the activities of beef industry today, one of the best history lesson comes from certain events around the turn of the last century. The Sherman Antitrust Act had been passed in 1890. In the following decade it was mostly ignored by the Executive Branch of the federal government. In about 1885, prior to the passage of the Sherman Act, a pool Read More …

Son of a Father – Child of the Earth

by Richard Oswald These days, when a young man or woman makes the decision to farm for a living, it’s usually with the intention either to go with the flow or swim upstream against it. That’s the way it is. Young farmers must use the focused power of agribusiness riding the current like a surfer snug in the curl or like salmon that preserve their species by opposing the current. When I first heard of Eric Herm’s book Read More …

The Comstock Report

by David Kruse President, ComStock Investments (With Permission to Reproduce) Copyright 2011@ CommStock Investments, Inc., David Kruse The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) believes that hog producers have a birthright to buy cheap, below the cost of production, corn for feed. They never ever complained about farm subsidies keeping corn farmers producing burdensome stocks of corn, but have focused a lot of ire on ethanol subsidies that helped develop an industry that pays farmers what their corn should Read More …