Lost in the breathless reporting on the huge federal budget cuts and even more massive federal tax cuts just passed by the heel-clicking Congress was a report on just how rich America's mega-rich now …

With 2025 half gone, the cautious American ag economy, like the slowing U.S. economy, now tiptoes into its second half. Key U.S. ag markets quietly survived the raucous first half. For example, …

Six months into my first job as pup reporter in the last century, I pestered my boss to transfer me from the green fields of north central Iowa to the story-littered streets of Washington, D.C. to …

If you’re in charge of reversing American agriculture’s three-years-old-and-growing trade deficit, your list of options is as limited as it is unworkable. You can, for instance, …

When you're 8 or 9 years old, you don't see the world as you will as a 50- or 60-year-old. Much of what seems perfectly ordinary to a child often becomes quite extraordinary with the passing of time. …

Despite all his accolades and achievements, Dwight D. Eisenhower remained modest and plainspoken. “The proudest thing I can claim” he noted after his triumphant return to the U.S. from …

For U.S. farmers and ranchers, Thursday, May 22, was right out of a Dickens novel: It was the best of days and the worst of days. Early — and I do mean cow-milking early — that …

On Feb. 21, 2018, this space outlined my assessment of Congress’s meandering approach to the overdue 2018 Farm Bill. Don’t just polish the badly tarnished 2014 Farm Bill, I urged; write a …

The opening lines in an April 11 farmdocDAILY post should have raised an eyebrow or two among Farm Bill geeks both in and out of Congress: “The U.S. crop safety net,” it begins, …

From 30,000 feet, the Port of Los Angeles looks like a child's toy being unfolded into a multi-faceted Transformer. This blocky, brawny big brother, however, covers 7,500 acres and lies …

Somewhere along life's highway most of us learned to balance a checkbook. This task usually involved a pencil, the back of a used envelope, and some basic math. Today, however, a click or two in a …

If you are one of the millions of Americans who pollsters say “voted for change” last November, boy, are you getting it now. As of this spring, for example, illegal border crossings …

Longtime readers of this weekly effort may recall my affection for the word “woodenheadedness.” It comes from “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman's 1984 book about …

The Trump Administration may grant U.S. agriculture special exemptions from parts of its ever-changing tariff regime but it can't exempt it from everyday economic reality. That mainstay of …

Family lore has it that sometime in the pre-refrigeration days of the late 19th century, my forefathers dug a small cave into a steep hillside on their adjacent farms to store several barrels of …

Medicaid looks to be one of the big corks Congress hopes will help plug an estimated $4.7 trillion flood of red ink that accompanies tax cuts Republicans plan to pass this spring. They’re …

In the seven weeks that global markets and U.S. farmers have been living in the uncertain trade world of the Trump Administration, prices for most American ag exports have headed south faster than a …

If it's Tuesday, the White House's long promised tariffs against Canada and Mexico are on again but if it's Thursday, they–well, many that its Big Biz backers don't want–are off again. …

One of the first marketing lessons offered to me, a wet-behind-the-ears ag editor, by a steely and successful ag futures trader was as simple and useful as a feed bucket. "Markets hate …

You can kill house flies with a shotgun but that's best done outdoors and away from people. Of course, drawing a bead on the indoor pests outdoors defeats the purpose of going after the little …