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Despite overwhelming voter support in rural areas, Trump has said relatively little about supporting family farms. Thus far, policy choices and trends in the last month appear to deprioritize the family farm. For example: • New Trump tariffs on the three leading importers of American agricultural products (Canada, Mexico, and China) will damage US farm exports, as those countries turn to other providers they trust more. (The Canadian population is especially angry.). This will jeopardize $ billions of agricultural exports over the long term. • USAID's elimination has taken $2 billion straight out of U.S. farmer's pockets from the Food for Peace program (which purchases rice, wheat, corn and soy from U.S. farmers). • Although Trump in his first term spent heavily to compensate farmers for lost export markets due to tariffs, that will be much harder to do this time as he prioritizes massive budget reductions to pay for new or renewed tax cuts. • The abrupt freezing or cancellation of $ billions of USDA reimbursements, contracts, programs and research has placed many farmers in a financial bind. No one knows what will happen to these programs. • Large scale firings at USDA will jeopardize the delivery of USDA services that family farms depend on. • Republican Congressional tentative plans to cut $150 billion from SNAP (Food Stamps) could also impact local markets for small farmers, as SNAP recipients are a higher percentage of rural communities than urban ones. • Trump’s promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants will worsen the farming sector’s chronic labor shortage, making it much more expensive or simply unobtainable. • Under the Biden administration, the USDA, the Fair Trade Commission and the Dept of Justice launched far-ranging actions against Big Ag monopolies in poultry, meat-packing, pesticides, and ag equipment, all intended to reduce Big Ag’s monopoly power and give farmers fairer prices. This will almost certainly change under Trump. New FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, for example, had opposed the Biden FTC’s action against John Deere for refusing to allow farmers to use independent repair shops. • New USDA Secretary Rollins has signaled she supports the agro-industry’s demands for less oversight and a more lenient attitude towards corporate consolidation, which will place family farms at a disadvantage. The bottom line: It is still early, and the Trump administration may yet face pressure from farm state Republicans to be more supportive of family farms. However, senior jobs in the administration are overwhelmingly filled by billionaires with little interest in agriculture, while Trump himself seems more intent on using draconian tariffs to promote manufacturing. The needs of American farmers thus far appear to be low on the priority list. Want to learn more? Check out the links at the end of this newsletter.
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