Author Archive

If you are a family farm pork producer, your action is needed before January 2. The USDA (under the cover of Christmas) is asking pork producers if they want to vote on the pork checkoff. If 15% of producers request it, a vote will be held within one year. You can read more here. The form...
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This is a near quote of Michael Pollan on NPR’s Fresh Air this week: There is a real issue of perception of elitism, and it is one of ironies of our society that junk food being sold by multinational corporations like McDonalds and Kraft appears to be populist, and food grown by struggling, scrupulous...
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Well, after two years, a farm bill, some bourbon and who knows how many blog posts, I left the Center for Rural Affairs and headed to Ohio for graduate school. It has been a privilege to work at the Center for Rural Affairs, and thanks to all of you who have fought for a better farm bill and...
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Evidently my somewhat inflamed posts on wind energy last week caused a little angst in Nebraska last week, so allow me to clarify a little further. First, the Nebraska Public Power District is not the only public power entity in the state.  There are many other public power organizations, from utilities to boards of utilities...
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In today's New York Times, columnist Dan Barry writes lovingly of the new wind farm just south of Ainsworth, Nebraska: Driving south out of the agricultural town of Ainsworth, you can’t miss its newest crop: wind turbines, three dozen of them, with steel stalks 230 feet high and petal-like blades 131 feet long, sprouting improbably from the sand...
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In last week's Sunday New York Times Magazine, an interesting article appeared that made me think of much of the agricultural policy work I've done over the past two years.  The article- written by Roger Lowenstein- had nothing to do with agriculture or rural communities per se.  Rather, it concerned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it discussed the...
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I think perhaps I've settled down a bit since yesterday, and therefore can continue my thoughts on Nebraska wind energy development without fear of imminent cardiac arrest.  Which is good, because there is plenty to comment on. As I noted yesterday, Nebraska Public Power has announced it will generate 10% of its electricity from renewable...
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Here at the Center for Rural Affairs, we like wind power.  And it has been a source of constant dismay that Nebraska's power generating sector has consistently opposed wind power development, and when public outcry has led them to (finally) accept the least bit of public policy supporting wind power, they have worked to undermine such policy as well. ...
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Our weekly column, written by Elisha Greeley Smith... We don't need to read the results from the new U.S. Census analysis to realize that many rural populations are on the decline. We can simply glance down most of our main streets and see closed businesses and dwindling inhabitants. The loss of our rural communities is not inevitable, not the result...
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In a rather successful effort to get me all riled up, Brian DeVore of the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) details the blatant perversion of a livestock promotion program in Minnesota: You can pass into law the greatest policy in the world, but in the end its success depends on good implementation. Exhibit A: When the...
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