Farms and farming
On this page are links to articles about farms, farmers, and farming from feed grains to forestry, about the strip-mining and reclamation of prime farmlands, about polluted runoff from farm fields, about agribusiness and ag federal policy, and about the farm economy and rural Illinois.
I came from farm people—people who farmed, who sold machines to farmers and lent money to farmers and bought and sold the things farmers made. I grew up in in a state in which city folks are as perfectly surrounded by farms as Hebrideans are by water. The first two pieces I sold to national magazines were about farming and farmers.
While I was busy at my keyboard for 40 years, the family farmer became the agribusinessman, the grain-and-hog farm became an outdoor factory, and agriculture completed its evolution from growing food for people to producing feedstocks for industry—much to lament, in short, but more happily, much to write about too. My pieces gradually became more critical and my prose more pointed but that had no effect on public debate whatsoever. Farming still enjoys a privileged place in Illinois culture and politics that I think the industry is less and less entitled to.
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The Family Farmer: An Endangered Species?
A “typical” family farmer of central Illinois in the 1970s.
Across the Board September 1978
"Breadbasket or Dustbowl"
This is the first part of the six-article series on soil cpnservation that appeared in Illinois Issues magazine between September 1981 and February 1982. The series was another of that magazine’s examinations of pressing environmental issues, in this case funded in large part by The Joyce Foundation, with the assistance of the Illinois Department of Agriculture's Division of Natural Resources. The articles were later published as a 48-page booklet titled Breadbasket or Dustbowl. (See Publications.)
The distance between Eden and the desert
Illinois Issues September 1981
Saving the Soil: Target Date 2000
The rebirth of soil conservation in Illinois
Illinois Issues December 1981
Soil Loss: The Conversion Factor
"The land is going! The land is going!"
Illinois Issues January 1982
Farmland Preservation: Condos or Corn?
Saving the farm—until it's time to sell
Illinois Issues February 1982
Recreating a paradise of weeds in Illinois
"Prejudices" Illinois Times January 15, 1992
Chicago's economic and environmental past, synthesized
Illinois Times December 11, 1991
How Chicago Became the Gateway to the West
A review of Cronon’s Nature's Metropolis
Chicago Enterprise October 1991
Turning Illinois’s poor counties into bucolic Disneylands
"Prejudices" Illinois Times May 26, 1983
Why soil loss in Illinois is a bad thing
The Ecologist (UK) No. 5/6, 1984
The world through the eyes of Farm Week
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 3, 1983
Trading coal today for corn forever
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 18, 1980
Charlie Boon, Logger, of Goofy Ridge
A tinkering entrepreneur in the old Illinois style
Illinois Times November 24, 1978
Illinoisans debate how to treat animals for food
"Prejudices" Illinois Times January 28, 1982
Where Corn Is God
Not quite everything you wanted to know about corn
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 21, 2016
Coal companies plow up central Illinois
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 25, 1980
It's Not the Heat, It's the Corn
Are row crops making summers unbearable?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 12, 2011
The demise of the Illinois countryside
“Prejudices” Illinois Times August 10, 1979
Planting new questions about Illinois ag
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 12, 1984
Fair Deal
Turning the state fair into an expo of real rural life
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times September 8, 2016
Toward a Farm-fresh Food System
Can central Illinoisans learn to like their broccoli?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 9, 2010
Betting the Farm
Is Illinois farmland the next real estate bubble?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times May 5, 2011
Could building materials be a new Illinois crop?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times April 24, 2014
On converting Illinois corn to motor fuel
Illinois Issues January 1981
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