- Video shows Trump addressing congress, farmers harvest from 2024
- Trump calls for farmers to be ready to sell domestically
- Farmers say international markets are essential
- Causing uncertainty in Ag markets
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
During his address to Congress President Trump had a special message for American farmers.
“Our farmers starting on April 2nd, it may be a little bit of an adjustment period,” said Trump during his address.
That April 2nd deadline is bringing a new challenge for producers tariff’s on products farmers sell to international markets.
“The truth is we are not set up to sell everything internally. Just in Nebraska 30% of the income in the Ag sector comes from things we sell outside of our borders,” said Mark McHargue, President of Nebraska’s Farm Bureau.
Trumps announced internal tariff’s are just the latest in a string of policy proposals and executive orders that has many farmers worrying how they will balance their books.
It comes at a time where commodity prices are down nearly 50% from their high in 2022.
And stepping away from those markets brings the risk of our trading partners buying their corn and soybeans somewhere else.
“A perfect example is Brazil is selling China a tremendous amount of soybeans that we traditionally sold to them,” said McHargue
“It might not be something that producers are thinking about in this moment, I think its something that if its not resolved its gonna have negative consequences down the road,” said Kalee Olson, a farmer and policy manager for the Center for Rural Affairs.
As a farmer herself Kalee Olson has seen first hand how some of the Trump administration’s choices are creating uncertainty for farmers.
Whether its internal tariff’s or suddenly pausing payments to farmers participating in federal conservation programs like Conservation Service Programs and the Environmental Quality Incentives program.
“You know worst case scenario you have a small farm that really went for it and are expecting 10 to 20 thousand dollar reimbursements. That can have detrimental affects on family farms,” said Olson.
McHargue told us he has some renewed confidence that progress can be made to protect farmers from potentially disastrous tariff’s.
Trump in recent days has walked back part of his proposed tariff’s on Canada and Mexico and McHargue hopes those exceptions can extend to Nebraska’s farmers.
“It seems that yes they are putting some big comments out there but they are pulling back and tailoring things a bit,” said McHargue.
