April Hemmes began farming soybeans in Iowa in the mid-1980s, just as the agricultural economy was in crisis and many farms were lost. Now, when she speaks to her younger peers, she hears a common refrain: “This is my ’80s, April.”
Experienced farmers are used to tough times, Hemmes said, but for younger farmers — the average age is about 59 now — today’s farm economy is a uniquely challenging situation.
“They’re going through it,” she said at a panel on tariffs and global trade hosted by Investigate Midwest, Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, and Arkansas Times. “But I tell them, I got through it, you’ll get through it.”
The latest round of tough times stems from President Trump’s decision, in 2018, to start a trade war with China, which U.S. soybean farmers had come to rely on to buy their product. Since then, China has turned to Brazil for soybeans.
After Trump regained the presidency, he slapped tariffs on China. (On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs as illegal.) In the past several months, after the countries hashed out an agreement, China has begun purchasing U.S. soy again, according to Reuters.
“At the end of the day, South America can’t service all their needs,” said Hemmes, who has served on the board of the United Soybean Board and traveled to China several times.
However, she added, “We know we have relied on them for too many years.”
Hemmes said the larger issue for lawmakers and the agricultural industry is figuring out how to be competitive on the global stage, especially as China invests in infrastructure in South America that could sideline U.S. farmers for decades, as Investigate Midwest reported in December.
“What if all the trade deals went away magically? Where do we go from there? If there wasn’t anything there, we can’t compete with Brazil,” she said. “We cannot compete with their price. How can we compete on the world stage with the commodities we grow? That’s really the conversation that needs to happen.”
The current crisis in the U.S. can be traced back decades to the 1970s, with new trade deals negotiated and the policy of “get big or get out,” said Jared Phillips, a professor at the University of Arkansas.
“We created a permanent crisis that we band-aided over with an imperfect patchwork of subsidies and extension programs,” he said.
In order to address the issue, there needs to be fundamental changes to how the government and the industry think about agricultural systems and its long range planning, he said. “Get rid of the five-year cycle and think almost in terms of generational cycles,” he said.
This year, U.S. soybean exports to China could return to normal levels, but Brazil is expected to have a record crop, which will increase global soybean supply, said Joana Colussi, a professor at Purdue University. The glut of soybeans has already decreased commodity prices in the country, and many farmers are dealing with bankruptcies.
“The financial stress that we have seen that U.S. farmers have experienced over the past two seasons here in the U.S. is now getting worse in Brazil,” Colussi said.
The panel discussion was born out of recent investigative reporting by Investigate Midwest's Monica Cordero and Arkansas Times' Phillip Powell that documented China’s multi-million investment in ports and agricultural infrastructure across Latin America, including Brazil and Peru, as well as the impacts of tariffs and trade wars on U.S. farmers in states across the Midwest.
