Just one way that Trump screws farmers

Hopefully at least some in the farm economy will take reality checks like this to heart.

Many farmers work on the thinnest margins, fighting to stay profitable. Some, looking to cut costs on electricity, turn to the federal government for a little extra cash to help them install solar panels on top of barns, grain elevators, or offices. Others turn to commercial renewable energy leases as both an alternative income stream and a way to put fallow land to work.

Within the first year of President Trump’s second term, two federal programs critical to the growth of solar energy production — REAP and the clean energy tax credit — have been rolled back. To document how those policy changes are affecting farmers, The Associated Press and Grist analyzed data on both commercial-scale solar projects and small-scale rural energy development across the country. They found that, so far this fiscal year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture hasn’t awarded a dollar in rural energy grants or loan guarantees. Reporters contacted roughly a quarter of the nearly 300 developers that have proposed projects on agricultural land in the last two years, and found that they are either preparing their businesses to do future projects without federal support, or have already lost millions in investment because of the administration’s new tax credit policies. - Grist

Farmers are taking a big hit from Trump policies

This is being underreported in “legacy” media, of course.

A large group of agriculture experts warned that US farms are taking a financial beating thanks to President Donald Trump’s global trade war.

In a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Tuesday, the experts warned of a potential “widespread collapse of American agriculture and our rural communities” caused in no small part by Trump administration policies.

The letter’s signatories—which include former leaders of American agricultural commodity and biofuels associations, farm leaders, and former USDA officials—pointed to Trump’s tariffs on imported goods and his mass deportation policies as particularly harmful.

“It is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction,” the letter states, “have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical [agricultural] research and staffing.” - Common Dreams

The Colorado River is drying up, and the repercussions could be big

Though I'll note that much of the ag production could be shifted elsewhere, if this country would quit wasting resources on corn ethanol.

It was called Boulder Dam in February 1935 when it began holding back the Colorado River to form the gigantic reservoir of Lake Mead. The foundations of irrigation-driven economic development—a dream of entrepreneurs since the 1890s—had been laid. Now, however, a relentless drought that has drained this and other reservoirs to record lows could turn that dream into a nightmare for the 40 million people and all the other creatures who rely on the river, which irrigates 6 million acres of farmland. About 80% of the water goes to agriculture.

The officials of seven states charged with allocating how much of this reduced water will flow to whom cannot agree. They’ve blown past two deadlines for letting the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation know what they’ve decided. The bureau had warned that if the states didn’t collectively set the reductions themselves by the most recent deadline, Jan. 31, it would do the divvying. Those cuts may amount to one-third or more of existing allocations. - Daily Kos

Conservation programs for farmers need to be massively increased

For the sake of all of us.

According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), between 2010 and 2020, just 31% of farmers who applied to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and only 42% of farmers who applied to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) were awarded contracts. Overall, EQIP turned down 946,459 contracts and CSP denied 146,425 contracts, at least partially for lack of funds. These numbers vary widely by state, but some of the lowest approval rates occurred in major agriculture states. The practices supported by EQIP and the whole farm approach supported by CSP help farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to emerging and extreme climate-related changes. Right now, Congress has a unique opportunity in the budget reconciliation process, and later in the next Farm Bill, to dramatically increase spending for CSP and EQIP, which would have an immediate, tangible impact on farmers’ ability to respond to the climate crisis...

Farmers are often on the front lines of climate change. While climate change affects everyone’s livelihoods, it does so for farmers in an immediate, visceral way. Whether it is through droughts, floods, extreme heat, megafires or any other weather extremes, climate change can ruin a crop or devastate animals in the blink of an eye. According to experts at USDA’s Economic Research Service, climate change is expected to increase the cost of the federal crop insurance program from 3-20% or more, depending on how quickly we respond to the climate crisis. - IATP

President Biden should get rid of ethanol fuel

It is of course extremely unlikely that he'll do anything of the kind. That said, growing insane amounts of corn is bad. It's bad for the environment, for the climate, for farmers, and ultimately for everyone.

President Joe Biden campaigned on an ambitious plan to tackle climate change with a “clean energy revolution,” including incentives to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric ones. The growing consensus among climate experts is that to slash carbon emissions quickly enough, we need to eliminate as much air-fouling combustion as possible while expanding wind and solar energy to power the grid. But a key aspect of Biden’s agenda contradicts this push: He’s vowed to “promote ethanol and the next generation of biofuels,” declaring them “vital to the future of rural America—and the climate.” Biden tapped longtime ethanol champion Tom Vilsack—former governor of Iowa, the fuel’s Saudi Arabia—to run the Department of Agriculture, a post he held under Obama.

In doing so, Biden is doubling down on a bad idea that has flourished since the days of President George W. Bush...

From a greenhouse gas emissions perspective, the renewable fuel standard has been a bust, says Jason Hill, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering. By displacing petroleum, the ethanol mandate made conventional gasoline cheaper, which made people drive more while buying less-fuel-efficient vehicles. As a result, Hill and two colleagues found in a 2016 paper, the net effect of the law was to increase greenhouse gas emissions from cars by about 22 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to the output of nearly six coal-fired power plants.

The environmental footprint of industrial-scale corn farming is another stain on ethanol’s claim to be a green fuel. Corn typically covers about 90 million acres of farmland—an area nearly the size of California. Fertilizing the crop emits nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon, as well as nitrate pollution that fouls water from the upper Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, where it generates a low-oxygen dead zone larger than Connecticut. Hill and his colleagues have found that nitrogen fertilizer applied to corn also results in emissions of ammonia, a powerful pollutant, that have been associated with a staggering 4,300 premature deaths yearly in the United States. - Mother Jones

China is not loading up on U.S. farm products

Yeah, guess who got totally suckered again.

In a humiliating (July 11) statement, Trump was forced to admit that he was wrong when he promised farmers that China would soon buy large quantities of American agricultural products.

Trump was reduced to groveling, essentially begging China to start buying products from U.S. farmers.

"China is letting us down in that they have not been buying the agricultural products from our great Farmers that they said they would," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Hopefully they will start soon!" - Shareblue

Though I don't often link to Politico, this one is important: "Trump's trade wars thrust farmers into desperation loans."

Trump in full-on lunatic mode as his trade policy crushes farmers

I know, when is he not in “full-on lunatic mode?” Anyway:

President Donald Trump is seeking an additional $15 billion in U.S. subsidies in an effort to protect farmers from the devastating impact of his trade war with China. That’s on top of $12 billion already earmarked for the farmers to help them weather the fallout.

That would be an additional bill for U.S. taxpayers already shouldering the cost of increased tariffs in the form of higher costs for products and parts from China. 

Trump revealed the subsidy figure in a tweet Friday. He suggested the government use the funds to buy agricultural products to ship to other nations for humanitarian aid, though setting up such a system would be extremely complicated. In his most recent budget proposal, Trump proposed eliminating three food aid programs, Politico noted.

The president appeared to dismiss the impact of the cost as he falsely claimed — again — that “massive” tariff payments are being paid by China “directly” to the U.S. Treasury, which would presumably be used to cover the cost of the subsidy. There is “absolutely no need to rush” to negotiate a deal with China, he tweeted. - Huffington Post

Even South Dakota’s right-wing governor is bemoaning what Trump is doing. But I’ve seen little indication that his political support is really plummeting in farm country the way it should. Making that happen would seem to be a “hard row to hoe.” (Weak, I know. I typed it anyway.)

Farmers are being crushed, screwed over, and plenty of other things by Trump

You probably saw that last year Minnesota’s median farm income was the lowest it's been in the 23 years that the U. of Minn. has been tracking it. A couple more items:

Among those who’re learning about the “truthy-ness” of The Donald are farmers who voted for him, having bought his campaign promise to restore farm prosperity.

Once in office, though, he quickly sold them out, throwing a hissy-fit of a trade war with China that ended up slapping U.S. farmers by lowering the already low prices they get for their crops...

Actions speak louder than words, of course, so on March 11 Trump took actions to express his true love for farmers: He whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, his cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture. - OurFuture.org

The reference is to the Trump budget proposal; cuts like that are highly unlikely to get through Congress. But the point is that that’s where Traitor Trump's head is at.

Some large equipment manufacturers, including John Deere and Caterpillar, announced almost immediately after the tariffs were implemented last summer that they would raise their prices to adjust for the higher price of steel and aluminum imports. It’s not just large manufacturers, though—small, locally based equipment manufacturers have also had to raise prices or look elsewhere for steel. In Montana, a horse-trailer manufacturer was forced to hike prices by about 20 percent last summer because of the tariffs. Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded John Deere’s stock in February, citing “a real risk to farm equipment demand” if the trade war continues.

Many farmers are precluded from buying new agricultural equipment because of a combination of higher prices and lower profits. But that puts them in a catch-22. Farmers replace their equipment only every five to seven years. Those who were going to replace it this year and now can’t afford to are forced to repair it instead. And because steel costs are up, so too are the costs of replacement parts. - The Atlantic

Farmers still taking it on the chin thanks to Trump incompetence and stupidity

These items speak for themselves. Especially the one about Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN).

One economic expert after another said Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, Mexico, and other key trading partners would not benefit the United States, and now U.S. taxpayers are stuck with the bill. U.S. farm exports such as soybeans, pork, and even cheese have plummeted, while countries like Russia are enjoying some of their biggest orders in history, as giant markets like China turn to new suppliers. 

As Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reports (Feb. 22), the biggest losers in Trump’s trade war appear to be all of us taxpayers, who have had to disburse $7.7 billion to keep American’s farmers afloat. - Daily Kos 

- "After Trump Shutdown costs the United States economy $11 billion, MN08 Stauber wants to Empower the “Imperial President” with more Tariff Authority" - MN Political Roundtable

- "Why Minnesota legislators are so worried about the state's farmers" - MinnPost