http://www.thelandonline.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:15:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184113410.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184113410.html My mother fondly remembers the smell of burning leaves on the streets of her Chicago neighborhood growing up. There was something so American at the time about being able to burn your waste and not have to worry about the pollutants and other hazards that now concern us. Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:14:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184105158.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184105158.html With the summer’s big holiday just ahead and the midpoint of the year just behind, it’s time to empty the office bucket of spleen, venom, anger and an occasional kiss readers vented, hurled, sent and tossed my way. Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:13:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184104955.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184104955.html Is the yet-young ethanol industry so much stronger than the ages-old livestock industry that it will continue to crank out fuel even as America’s food production drops and food prices soar? The USDA thinks so; I think that’s an enormous leap of faith. Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:12:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184103747.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_184103747.html American Energy for the 21st century has the potential to benefit the rural communities of the Upper Minnesota River Watershed and, in contrast to the coal imported from Wyoming and burned in South Dakota, it can be clean, renewable, sustainable, distributed, and to every extent possible, owned and to the benefit of the people who live here in Minnesota. Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:11:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101840.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101840.html Even though we are in the 21st century, and race should not matter, I’m afraid it still does to all too many in this country. I don’t care about the color, gender, party affiliation, dietary habits, or whether or not they are a pet owner. What matters to me is if they can do the job. Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:10:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101408.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101408.html “There’s no ‘food crisis’ in the world today,” a farmer told me at a late-May gathering. “The crisis is all the big money pushing up commodity prices.” Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:09:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101021.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_171101021.html There’s no profit in arguing with government numbers, a veteran commodity trader once moaned to me. “You might be right come two months,” he explained, “but the market might kill you in two weeks.” Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:16:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_151155136.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_151155136.html German-Prussian politician Otto von Bismarck once said, “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.” With the recent completion of the 2007 farm bill, that saying took on greater significance. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:15:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150162531.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150162531.html June is dairy month so let’s begin the festivities with a look-see into the giant (black and white) elephant, the mega-cooperative Dairy Farmers of America. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:14:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150162129.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150162129.html According to two documents posted on Sen. Charles Grassley’s congressional website, the “grassroots” anti-ethanol media blitz that’s hitched today’s climbing food prices to farmer-backed biofuels is as fake as Astroturf. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:13:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154908.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154908.html Markets for sustainable and organic products are exploding and creating new opportunities to keep farmers on the land and get new farmers started. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:12:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154542.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154542.html If there is one thing I’ve learned from my dealings with economists over the years, it’s that their work is very complicated and it’s easy for even the smartest people to make incorrect assumptions if they overlook key factors. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:11:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154215.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150154215.html It seems that many who are looking for the cause of rising food costs are looking to the perceived “easy” answer, biofuels, without looking at the complex, global, bigger picture. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:10:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150153859.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150153859.html In a world of finger pointing, farmers have had to shoulder the blame for the increased costs of food, when in reality, the facts point to other influences that contribute to the rising costs. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:09:00 +0000 http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150153557.html http://www.thelandonline.com/l_opinion/local_story_150153557.html A firestorm of negative media about the ethanol industry seems to have become the current rage. The issue is usually presented as a moral controversy by casting it in terms of “food versus fuel.” To portray a complex issue in simplistic moral terms is to trivialize it.