
Agriculture insights, views and expert opinions
Movin’ On
Aside from growing up on the farm in the ‘70s and being around machinery on a regular basis as a kid, the TV show “Movin’ On” was a can’t-miss event for me every week the show ran. (There was no DVR back then!) To my mind, the star of that show was the Kenworth W900 […] Read more
It’s time for some political common sense
Lately I’ve been eyeing up my back yard to see if a 1960’s style fallout shelter might fit in it, because for the first time in decades I can envision some sort of post-apocalyptic world emerging from the current political chaos. I may be exaggerating a bit here, but I am genuinely concerned about the […] Read more
Previewing the 8RX
“We’re excited to show you what John Deere is introducing this year,” said one of the brand’s marketing reps as she addressed a group of farm machinery writers. That was several weeks ago as we sat in one of the meeting rooms inside the green brand’s Waterloo, Iowa, tractor and cab assembly plant. The smile […] Read more
Getting more than you paid for
Earlier in the week I was chatting with a career truck driver. We were discussing how the trucking industry has changed. And we got onto the topic of how technology in the trucks now was so far advanced compared to what was in the rigs we both drove when we were younger. Autoshift transmissions and […] Read more
Get in and hang on
My morning routine usually involves first sitting down in my office with a coffee and scanning through emails, and then checking Twitter to see what, if any, interesting news is being talked about. Today I noticed two very interesting tweets almost one after the other. The contradiction between them was a bit jarring. The first […] Read more
Keeping up with the times
This week a news release on a survey about the general public’s attitude toward education arrived in my digital inbox. I’m not sure how I ended up on the mailing list for it. Getting inundated by “news” releases from marketing staff of all stripes, whether or not it has anything to with what we write […] Read more
Hand me that fish
There are some days lately—well, many of them actually—when it feels to me like the world is living through one giant Monty Python skit. I mean think of it. This week Boris Johnson’s Tory government in the UK tried to pass a non-confidence bill against itself to trigger an election—and it failed! Even with his […] Read more
Fill ‘er up
As I stood at a pump island fuelling up my Jeep, It struck me how unusual it is these days to find a gas station that actually offers a full service choice, like the one I was at. Pumping gas was one of those things a lot of young guys my age started out their […] Read more
Some days…
As I sat at my office computer this week with a long list of recorded interviews to transcribe and turn into articles, I couldn’t manage to accomplish anything constructive. It seems some days I just can’t get into it. That’s likely a problem everyone in every profession has experienced from time to time. As I […] Read more
A nemesis of the Nemesis?
The introduction of Versatile’s Nemesis tractor and the simultaneous announcement—but not official introduction—of the Kubota M8 tractor line at the same time caused some logistical problems for the two brands when it came to publicity. At the moment the Nemesis models rolled into the spotlight, Kubota confirmed it had an OEM agreement with Versatile to […] Read more
Grainews is written for farmers and often by farmers. It is about putting theory into practice on the farm. Each issue also features Cattleman’s Corner for cow-calf producers and farmers with mixed cattle and grain operations.