Farming is uncertain — a trade war makes it more so
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Farmers do not like uncertainty. They want to know the prices their crops would fetch before they plant them. And they want to know how much it'll cost to buy seeds and fertilizer and farm equipment. And they want to know they won't be hit by drought or bird flu. But

But right now, things are not certain in farm country. Things are changing hour by hour. How do you operate a business that way? Justin Sherlock is a farmer, also president of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. As our colleague Kirk Sigler reported from North Dakota, his uncertainty is compounded by tariffs and when or if they take hold.

President Trump's tariffs and tariff threats on foreign imports have led to other countries retaliating with tariffs on American agricultural exports. For a soybean farmer, that would make Canadian fertilizer more expensive to import and would result in millions of tons of soybeans not being sold and exported to China. The tariffs will go on agricultural product coming into America and our farmers starting on April 2nd, it may

It may be a little bit of an adjustment period. In his speech to Congress, President Trump asked farmers to bear with him. His hope is that the American economy eventually adapts to unlock a bigger domestic market for farmers. So to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you too. I love you too.

It's all going to happen. Under the first Trump administration's trade war, the federal government paid out billions to keep farmers afloat, but their businesses are still recovering. And Justin Sherlock has crops to plant this spring. You can't take that to the banker and say, well, our political leadership must have a plan, so give me a loan. In North Dakota, where one in five jobs are tied to agriculture, more than 67 percent of the electorate voted for Trump.

But consider this. So far, the Trump administration's agriculture policy and its signature economic policy have resulted in a condition that farmers try to avoid. Uncertainty. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Farmers already worry about crop prices, the cost of farm supplies, and extreme weather. Now, the federal government is another big question mark. President Trump's trade war will shape where farmers can sell their crops, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has paused reimbursements, cut programs, and attempted to lay off staff.

We wanted to know more about the relationship between farmers and the federal government. So this week we called on Ann Veneman. She was President George W. Bush's Secretary of Agriculture. My co-host Ari Shapiro takes it from here. How are Trump's tariffs likely to affect farmers?

Well, as you say, agriculture is an uncertain business. And I think uncertainty is what farmers face every day. But when you add on the disruption markets due to trade, these tariffs would fall most heavily on the U.S. agriculture industry. So, for example, China has been a major export market for U.S. agricultural products.

One quarter of the U.S. crop of soybeans has been exported to China. They may lose that market if the tariffs go back on soybeans like they did in 2018. Let's shift to the support that USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides to farmers. The majority of USDA spending goes to nutrition assistance programs like SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. If that shrinks, what does that mean for farmers in the U.S.?

Certainly farmers are supported in many ways. The USDA is one of the most diverse and largest departments in government. So about 14% of USDA's budget goes directly to farm conservation and commodity programs, directly supporting farmers, much of it through subsidized crop insurance to insure against losses. But the USDA has so much more. For example, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Program

has experts working to protect agriculture from pests and diseases, particularly these days, bird flu. You know, we have the Food Safety Inspection Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It's responsible for the safety of the meat and poultry. And then, of course, you talk about the nutrition programs. They account for about 70% of the USDA budget. There is discussion about whether or not the SNAP program, the former food stamp program, will be cut.

But there's also discussion about whether or not there may be some limitations on what you could buy. I think a lot of the debate will probably be around cutting benefits to people in need. But does that have trickle-down impacts or trickle-up impacts on the farmers who produce the foods that become part of that food assistance program?

Well, potentially. There is one program. It's about a billion-dollar program that the department has already said it's going to cut. It buys produce locally produced by farmers in the area for food banks and school lunch.

That program is already being cut, and farmers that are depending on that program are already feeling the effects of that. The government has frozen or ended a lot of grants to farmers. Here's what a dairyman named Travis Forgs told Wisconsin Public Radio after the federal government paused two five-figure grants he had for a new industrial freezer and solar panels.

We have the contract signed. Did I think that perhaps in the future these grants wouldn't be available? Absolutely, because that happens with different leaders in place. But did I in the wildest dreams think that they wouldn't honor their word as our federal government? Absolutely not. Secretary Venneman, ultimately at least one of his grants went through. But big picture, what does the uncertainty around this mean for farmers?

Well, it puts them in a very difficult position. They've already started the work. They've already spent their part of the cost share. And if the money is not going to come from the federal government, it puts them in a very precarious position. They may then come under pressure from their banks because they can't pay back their loans. And I think when you have a contract, it should be honored.

When you were in office in the early 2000s as Agriculture Secretary, what did you hear most from farmers? What did they want the federal government to do more or less of? Well, farmers always want support. But I will say that farmers really want markets opened up around the world. When you look at what's happening today, when we're shutting off markets, that is exactly the opposite of what farmers wanted when I was at USDA.

That's Anne Veneman, who was Secretary of Agriculture under President George W. Bush, speaking with our co-host Ari Shapiro.

We heard Secretary Veneman describe farming as an uncertain business. Uncertainty is also on the minds of economists at the Federal Reserve System, the country's central bank. The 12 regional banks that make up the Fed regularly study their local economies, very much including agricultural industries, and they publish their findings in a document called the Beige Book. And throughout the latest edition, there's that word again, uncertainty.

Robert Smith and Waylon Wong of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money have our Beige Book report. This time in the Beige Book, one big thing stood out to Robert and me. The word uncertainty. That word showed up 45 times in the Beige Book. That's a new record and more than twice what it's been recently. Part of that is terrifying.

Tariffs were mentioned 49 times in the Beige Book, by the way. The president has been slapping tariffs on and then unslapping those same tariffs and then delaying the slap and then doing that thing where you sort of fake a slap and then point and laugh. Ha, ha, ha.

And that is creating a lot of feelings, as detailed in the Beige Book. The St. Louis Fed reported about how this uncertainty is affecting agriculture. Farming is an industry where you have to start right now, in the spring, even though the future is scary and unknown. Here is what the St. Louis Fed wrote in the Beige Book. Quote,

A contact in Memphis noted that the current agriculture market was in a worse spot than the same time last year. Contacts noted that tariffs, policy uncertainty, and a lack of clarity regarding farm bill safety nets were negatively impacting the sector. Some farmers also reported having no expectation of profits in the 2025 crop year.

and others have gone out of business. No profits. I know. We wanted to hear how farmers are personally navigating this difficult environment. My name is Zarlan Woodard. I'm a fourth-generation farmer in Tunica, Mississippi. My farm is Urban Hills Farms. Zarlan told us that a lot of the farms do a winter wheat that they sell around the world through USAID, the same USAID that's been essentially cut by the Trump administration.

So there's a lot of extra grain sitting around. And looking forward to this season, Zarlin is worried about the rising cost of fertilizer. A lot of our fertilizer comes from Canada. And with tariffs that's hitting Canada now, that's going to really drive up the price of fertilizer, which...

ultimately affects your overall profit margin. In fact, Zarlan is changing his plans right now based on the tariffs. Rice, the crop rice, apparently takes a lot of fertilizer to grow. So he's switching to soybeans, which requires a lot less fertilizer. But soybean prices are low. And they're unstable. If Brazil has a big crop, then worldwide prices will drop.

And China has just put a 10% tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation for our tariffs. Zerlin spends a lot of his time on his phone watching international news and soybean prices. It'll get to some point to where you have to make that decision to where are you going to continue to farm? Because if you can't make a profit, you know, there's no point in continuing. So the farmer started by your grandfather. What would he say now? Whew.

I don't know what his ideas would be right now. You know, it's tough. But Sarlan isn't dwelling on it. When we left him, he was staring at soy prices on his phone again, trying to figure out if he should lock in a price now or gamble on it going up later. Robert Smith. Waylon Wong, NPR News.

This episode was produced by Michelle Aslam, Connor Donovan, and Mia Venkat. It was edited by Patrick Jaron-Wantanon and Nadia Lancey, with help from NPR's Kirk Sigler and Eric Whitney. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Wanda Summers.

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