The Honorable Ms. Ann Veneman
Secretary, Dept of Agriculture
Room 200A Jamie L. Whitten Bldg.
14th & Independence Ave., SW
Washington, D.C. 20250
Dear Ms. Veneman,
I am writing this letter pursuant to a motion advanced and passed by the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union board of Directors, April 5, 2001.
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU) is deeply concerned over two issues concerning […]

Click the EDUCATION button at the top of the page for the report compiled by Rocky Mountain Farmers Union in preparation for the Governor’s Agricultural Summit held February 28, 2001.
Once on the education page, you may click the underlined word ‘read’ in the last paragrapgh for the complete report (PDF file), including charts and graphs.

By Dave Carter
I understand a museum has opened to commemorate some of history’s worst inventions. The Edsel is prominently displayed in the lobby. I’m sure New Coke and Crystal Pepsi also occupy places of honor.
I just hope they save a spot for the 1996 Farm Bill.
The 1996 Farm Bill, you may recall, was passed by […]

Tom Lauridson
Vice President
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union
As we begin to frame debate around the 2002 farm bill, the farm community must raise important issues to decision makers. Issues, that in the end, need to focus on a primary question – Do we really need to save family farms?
We hear more and more that bigger is better […]

By Dave Carter
The conventional wisdom guiding modern agricultural policy is starting to look kind of stupid.
Traditional economists, policymakers and agribusiness executives have long trumpeted the “efficiency” of a modern agricultural system in which independent agricultural producers must step aside in favor of large-scale industrialized food-producing operations.
These respected experts promised repeatedly that the new globalized […]

By Dave Carter
The post-election confusion in November left ranchers and farmers scratching their heads over the future of federal agricultural policies. Agricultural leaders keep searching the shifting election results for hints about the future of a farm bill, international trade, concentration and rural economic development. But at least the election night fiasco in Florida should […]

By Dave Carter
Traveling by commercial airline became a major effort this summer.
Flight delays and cancellations stranded thousands of travelers across the country over the past few months. The situation grew so bad that U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., recommended immediate action to break up the regional monopolies within the airline industry. Sen. Allard noted that […]

By Dave Carter
“How low can you go?”
It seems that many people are chanting this along with the limbo dancers while sipping pina coladas as they cruise the Caribbean on profits reaped from their latest stock investment.
Farmers and ranchers, however, mutter those words each time they check the market prices for their commodities.
Four years ago, Congress […]

By Dave Carter
A couple months back, I happened to stand next to a Kansas grain and livestock producer at the back of a convention hall as a panel of international trade experts extolled the opportunities awaiting agriculture in the new world marketplace. I noticed that my friend from Kansas began to fidget as each panelist […]

Solutions require fresh thinking from ag producers
By Tom Lauridson, Ph. D.
Farmers as individuals tend to increase production in years when prices are low because we cannot manage industry wide supply ourselves. We can’t manage supply alone because of the large number and geographic diversity of farmers in the United States.
No one farmer can personally make […]

By Dave Carter
Nearly a century ago, agricultural settlers were lulled to the high plains region by the promise that rain would follow the plow. Immigrants staked out homesteads across the Rocky Mountain West on the assumption that the farming practices that had worked well in the East could produce bumper crops in the West.
And it […]

By Dave Carter
Someone once described agriculture as “the last hand-shakin’ way of doing business in the country.”
It is an apt description. For years, millions of dollars of merchandise traded hands across rural America on the security of a firm handshake.
It worked. It worked because a relationship stood behind each handshake. A farmer and a local […]

By Tom Lauridson, Ph. D.
Thanks in part to the National Farmers Union rally in March, Congress has been put on notice that rural America is headed in the opposite direction of the rest of the national economy. However, having Congress’ attention hardly solves the problem . . . so now the hard work begins; we […]

By Dave Carter
Spring is a time of optimism across the rural West . . . at least in most years.
As the recent moisture and warming sun starts to paint the countryside green this spring, farmers and ranchers find themselves up against some nearly insurmountable odds. Commodity prices seem wedged at historic low prices. Diesel fuel, […]

By Jerry Hergenreder
I would like to introduce you to a farmer – myself – and tell you a little about agriculture. I may not look like a businessman when I am wearing my work uniform and you probably wouldn’t expect me out by the corral talking on my cell phone, saying, “Sell 2 May Corn […]

By Dave Carter
Critical mass.
The term describes the amount of molecular material necessary to begin the chain reaction necessary for a nuclear explosion.
Anyone concerned about the fabric of rural America today ought to be concerned about critical mass. Not from a sense of molecular matter and nuclear explosions. The critical mass in question concerns the existence […]

By Dave Carter
Remember Rollerball? Probably not.
Released sometime in the mid 1970’s, Rollerball was a grade “B” movie portraying a futuristic society in which nations had ceased to exist. Instead, something like 10 corporations ruled the world. Everyone around the globe owed their allegiance to one of those corporations. They flew the appropriate corporate flag outside […]

By Dave Carter
Did I miss something, or didn’t World War II end about 50 years ago?
You wouldn’t think so, based on the recent events surrounding the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle. No, I don’t mean the protests in the streets, although that’s another story. I am referring to the official negotiations among the […]

A hundred years ago, or maybe half a hundred, I helped my Dad and Uncle Harry gather dry cows.
We trailed them out to the Dwyer stockyards (no longer in business) and loaded them on a C&S boxcar (no longer in business) and sent them to Denver Union stockyards, consigned to Mann Boyd and Mann (no […]