Organization for Competitive Markets

By Richard Oswald The old rule of thumb is that farmers live like paupers only to die as millionaires when heirs receive their estate. That’s because land grows in value over time, but the return it gives owners, modest, slow appreciation, is traditionally only about 5% per year. Its a long story why, but because they owed money on their farm my parents were a little poorer in the early…

By Alan Guebert In a striking, two-and-a-half page analysis that ran counter to department leanings, the chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture strongly objected to the department’s use of two outside studies that justified the massive retooling—essentially gutting—of the 2010 update of Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rules to ensure fairness in livestock and poultry markets. The memo was one needle in a nearly 1,700-page haystack…