Farmers face steep losses in the middle of Trump's trade war and funding cuts
Jennifer Gilkerson never imagined that her West Virginia farm’s freeze-dried fruits would get caught up in political fights in Washington, D.C.
But last Friday, she learned that funding for a U.S. Agriculture Department program that helps schools and food banks buy products from local farmers like her had been cut. Without those federal dollars, Gilkerson no longer expects local schools to be able to buy her freeze-dried fruits, which she has already spent thousands of dollars preparing to produce.
“We’re just in such a state of shock. We just don’t really even know how to respond to all this. We thought that this was sacred and really untouchable,” Gilkerson said. “Everyone thinks all farmers voted for this, but we did not vote for this.”
From funding cuts to tariffs, farmers have found themselves caught in the middle of President Donald Trump’s escalation of trade wars and efforts to slash billions of dollars in spending, leaving a growing number now struggling to find markets for their products and facing the risk of steep losses for the year ahead.
Trump has acknowledged the impact his trade policies will have on farmers, telling them in his address to Congress this month that there will be “a little bit of an adjustment period” and that farmers will have to “bear with me again.” When it comes to spending cuts at the Agriculture Department and other agencies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a CNBC interview this week, the current federal spending levels are unsustainable and there will have to be a “detox period” for the economy as cuts are made.
But farmers across the country — from small organic berry growers in Maine to large-scale hog producers in Iowa — say those policy changes could cripple their businesses if they aren’t resolved soon, wreaking long-lasting damage on the U.S. agriculture industry.
“I think any farmer will tell you that we will take some short-term pain, but do not make this a long-term extended trade war, because that just won’t be good for agriculture or for the country in general,” said Bob Hemesath, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and raises hogs. “I know that this is the way President Trump believes he’s going to create better markets long term. I hope he’s correct. But my fear is that once you lose those markets to other suppliers, it’s very hard to get them back.”
U.S. farmers depend on exporting their products because for many products, like corn, the country produces more than it is able to consume. Foreign buyers are also more willing to buy agricultural products people in the United States don’t want, like chicken feet or cow tongues.
But those overseas markets are now in question as Trump threatens to ratchet up the amount of tariffs charged on products being shipped into the United States — a move that is already causing other countries to retaliate with their own tariffs on U.S. goods.
"I've been at this for 45 years, and for all of those years, any time there is a trade dispute with another country, they recognize that our soft underbelly, where we really get sensitive, is when you start messing with our food exports," said Chuck Conner, head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. "That has always been the case, and that is the case this time around on steroids."
Farmers say they are already seeing the effects after Trump put an additional 20% tariff on Chinese imports, after which China responded with an additional 10% to 15% tariff on U.S. agriculture products, including pork, wheat and corn.
After Trump briefly placed a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada last month, cattle farmers in Maine got notices that their grain prices would be increasing 15%, said Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Trump later walked back some of the tariffs, but he also warned that more are to come. A farmer also told Alexander that his price quote for a greenhouse shot up this week after Trump put a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.
“Consumers are going to see these impacts if farms are not able to carry through with their plans or their costs increase dramatically, whether it’s in what products are actually available this year or that the cost is going to have to go up because farmers can’t shoulder all of those changes themselves,” Alexander said.
Tariffs hit amid issues with federal aid
Federal funding cuts and freezes, along with staffing shortages at the Agriculture Department, have also been rippling across the U.S. agriculture industry. Farmers say they rely on grants and loans from the Agriculture Department to help make their products more affordable for U.S. consumers and weather the natural volatility in the market for agriculture commodities.
As Gilkerson tries to figure out a new market for her farm’s freeze-dried fruits, another group of West Virginia farmers has also been caught up in funding cuts to a separate Agriculture Department program to help promote local foods.
A group of farmers had been working to launch a brand of West Virginia-grown products called Appalachian Cellar. After months of work, they were preparing to begin distributing the brand to grocery stores and other food distributors when the Agriculture Department told them their funding had been cut off as of Jan. 19, the day before Trump entered office.
“I’ve got 31 farmers who are pissed off,” said Spencer Moss, executive director of the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, who was working on launching the line of products. “We are rounding the corner into the planting season, and we are supposed to be ramping up, but we are not. We are unable to ramp up.”
Not only will the group not be getting funding going forward for expenses it had coming up, but it’s unclear whether it will get reimbursed, as planned, for $100,000 in expenses related to the grant it had already paid for, Moss said.
“This is the economy of rural America. West Virginia is a wholly rural state, and so developing this agriculture economy in the state is extremely important,” she said. “These farmers pay their property taxes, they’re business owners, a lot of times they’re commissioners or school board members. These are the drivers that keep rural communities alive. So it feels like a divestment in rural communities across the board.”
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