Donald Trump’s presidency has deeply impacted many American farmers. Now, while the partial government shutdown is in place, farmers throughout the country can’t access benefits from the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, which is closed.
Last year, Trump’s tariff dispute with China resulted in retaliatory tariff increases that destabilized some American crop markets, including soybean and corn. The Trump administration in July 2018 promised a bailout of up to $12 billion, called the Market Facilitation Program, to farmers suffering from the tariffs. The program and the sign-up process has stalled since the shutdown. Farmers who rely on loans from the agency have also not received any checks, leaving them in a risky financial situation.
In an opinion column published Tuesday in The New York Times, Robert Leonard, the news director for the Iowa radio stations KNIA and KRLS, wrote that Trump’s decisions have “sucker-punched American Farmers.”
“Now, with farmers down, he’s kicking them with a partial shutdown that has effectively slammed the door on farm payments, loans and more. It’s hurting rural Americans — those who formed a big part of the base of Mr. Trump’s support in 2016,” Leonard wrote.
Food critic and Senior Editor at The Atlantic Corby Kummer told Boston Public Radio Tuesday that American farmers are “completely paralyzed by the lost market and not being able to get loans.”
Kummer believes that the conjunction of problems encountered during the Trump administration will cause some farms to decide to close and sell to large agricultural companies, impacting the future of farming in this country.
“We are looking at the loss of a new generation of farmers,” Kummer said.
