It has been said that this is a "golden age" for agriculture. I won't disagree. Wheat prices are out of sight. Corn price is double what it has been in recent years. Milk price is double. All my years in this business, I have heard that farm programs inflate land prices. They probably did but not anymore. The market is driving land values up. Can this"golden age" endure? We shall see.

You know how it works.Whoever is on top, they're the target. "Bring them down." Well, we are on top.…

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Is the war on fat going to tum out to be a big fat hoax? Now that the health care industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the media and yes the government have built obesity up into public enemy number one, there are questions yet unanswered.

It was my impression that obesity was becoming an epidemic. However, that may be an exaggeration. The average weight increase ofthe US population has increased about 7-10 pounds over the past 13 years. Thin Americans have not gained at all. And when we…

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Remember the lawsuit filed against McDonalds because that poor helpless New York City guy got fat eating all those Big Macs? Well, the judge threw it out and the guy altered the suit and filed it again. Trial lawyers save us from ourselves. Obesity, be gone! And that's the subject of my commentary today -- obesity.

You read about it. You see it on television. You see it walking down the street. I'm not here to suggest that we have no problem. I am saying that with the growing hysteria we…

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Timing is everything. Federal regulators, for whatever reason, didn't get around to approving Starlink com for human consumption. Now we have a real mess. Kraft recalled millions of taco shells. Safeway had to do the same. Farmers are blaming the seed companies that sold Starelink for not making it clear to them that they had to segregate the grain from other genetically engineered corn variates.

Here's the situation. We are eating genetically engineered corn every day now. It is approved…

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What's hot and what's not? That's a good questions. Look at the stock market as a barometer of the nation's economic health and you would have to conclude that we have a mixed bag. Although mostly on the positive side of the ledger. The old line blue chip stand-by stocks are the ones struggling.

Almost all of the food companies -- so basic to our lives -- are languishing at the bottom of the barrel. Take a look. There is IBP, ADM, Kellogg, Philip Morris, John Deere, Ag Co. Up and down the…

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The uncertainty swirling around biotechnology and genetically engineered products just seems to get more intense. It's hard for me to understand. For decades through plant breeding, we have been able to mix and match different characteristics from different plants. Now by using biotechnology we can do it faster. It's less expensive. What's the big deal? We've already eaten our own weight in genetically engineered foods. We didn't even notice. They've been on the market since 1994. Com,…

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