By Dave Carter The Lufthansa advertisement in the Newsweek magazine delivered to my house on September 11 was very simple. The photograph in the ad placed the viewer on the streets of a major city, looking upward through a maze of high-rise buildings to a jet plane soaring overhead. It was designed to convey a [...]

By Dave Carter WASHINGTON, D.C.—Everything just changed. It’s time we change just about everything. Including food policy. A delegation of farmers and ranchers from the Rocky Mountain region were in the Capitol complex lobbying on long-term farm policy this week when the first reports came in that an airliner had plunged into one of the [...]

By Dave Carter What is the role of the federal Farm Bill in guiding the structure of American agriculture anyway? Opponents of federal farm programs have argued for decades that Uncle Sam had no legitimate role in meddling in the farm marketplace. Eliminate farm programs, they claimed, and let the efficient farmers survive. In the [...]

By William Lee-Ashley We all know the old adage about a free lunch . . . that there is no such thing. The question is, do we dare say the same of the free market? In school I was told how the operation of the free market, unhindered by monopolies or government regulation, was the [...]

By Dave Carter Ever since the advent of the automobile, parents have used car keys as a powerful disciplinary tool with their teenagers – keys to the family car are regularly yanked when kids fail to prove their maturity. It is time to apply that same principle to international trade agreements. More than a decade [...]

By Dave Carter President Rocky Mountain Farmers Union I never knew that family farmers and ranchers had so many friends. Just look around. It seems as if every major big business organization is engaged in some type of public hand wringing about the future of the family farm and ranch. Conservative think tanks, chambers of [...]

By Dave Carter What is the future of agriculture in the urbanizing West? Is it a long-term sustainable component of a viable, diversified economy, or, is it simply a short-term proposition, destined for extinction? The outcome of ongoing debate over growth management in the Colorado legislature may largely determine the answer to the question. Lawmakers [...]

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) [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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; [...]