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 …

During the final stages of building the world's first atomic bomb, scientists at the secret New Mexico research site worried that the initial test of their new weapon might ignite the atmosphere and …

Folk singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie is undergoing a welcomed revival with the success of the new Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown." In it, Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet, …

Sir Isaac Newton-he of "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" fame- was a polymath who excelled in math, physics, astronomy, alchemy, and theology. And now, if you squint, …

Throughout the hard-fought, often ugly 2024 presidential race, Republican Donald Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's highly detailed, deeply conservative …

My father began retiring long before the sale of our farm's dairy cows in 1989. Began is the appropriate word because his exit from dairy farming was "slower than molasses in January," as he …

On Jan. 7, the day after Congress certified Donald J. Trump's election as the next president of the United States, the U.S. "Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield [CA]... …

By far the biggest lender to U.S. farmers, ranchers, and rural businesses is the Farm Credit System (FCS) whose four banks and 56 associations hold nearly 50 percent of all debt in rural America. …

The four-page executive summary of the November-issued report on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) doesn't predict when or how the hopefully-named "green" aircraft fuel will be produced. Instead, …

Why the results surprised anyone is itself a surprise. After the state of California began testing dairy herds for highly pathogenic avian influenza, known also as bird flu or H5N1, in August, …