'I've Never Seen Anything Like It': Trump Policies Leave US Farmers in Dire Straits
'I've Never Seen Anything Like It': Trump Policies Leave US Farmers in Dire Straits | Common Dreams
Sure you have, it was called Trump's first term.
A really good piece on the realities of this topic is here: https://youtu.be/badGHJLDpP8
TL;DW: Farmers thought they were voting for cheap labor and a bailout, like they got last time. They also thought that, as wealthy landowners1, they were on the "right side" of these disastrous trade policies and were going to be carried through this mess.
1\. I struggled with this concept at first. Things have changed a lot since the pre-WWII era that conjures up images of Ma & Pa Kent in a weathered century-home, on a lonely corn farm in Kansas. It's big business now. Good farm land isn't cheap, equipment is expensive, (legitimate) labor is expensive, fertilizer & irrigation costs a lot, pest control costs, crops are risky in general, and so on. When you work out how much money is moving around and what a farm's net worth is, these people are millionaires even if they're not in the black all the time.
I have more sympathy for my toenail clippings than I do for Trump voters getting exactly what they voted for.
Dont worry. Hard working people from blue states will bail them out. Again
This was all a calculated strategy to make independent farmers go bankrupt and into foreclosure, so that the big agritech companies could snag prime agricultural land for pennies on the dollar.
At some point, most food will be grown by corporations that can set whatever price they want for that food, and people will have to pay that price or starve to death. It’s the definition of “captured audience” that makes the Parasite Class extract so much wealth from the working class and become so fantastically wealthy.
Has this not already happened? The mythos of the independent farmer has existed since the great depression. I'm not convinced independent farmers actually exist anymore. Farmers are serfs who buy their seeds and their herbicides/fertilizers from Monsanto, and their tractors from John Deere. They lease the land from generational trusts and wall-street speculators.
Why would a corporation want to assume the risk of actually producing anything?
It's been happening steadily for a while, Trump just opened up a lot of avenues to accelerate it. There are still a lot of small and medium family farms that own their land and equipment.
I sincerely doubt it was calculated. This regime can’t think past its next Big Mac. The toddler in chief is far too reactionary to actually have a strategy beyond tomorrow’s unconstitutional removal of a public figure speaking out against republicans. It is highly convenient and will be taken advantage of by Big Ag to the fullest - and expect there to be clear favorites among Agribusiness just like when the media bent a knee to Trump and showered him with money.
The regime struggles to operate coherently, but certain elements of the regime are certainly capable of this sort of thing.
For instance, Vance has invested in the "AcreTrader" app, which is designed to take advantage of exactly this situation.
This has absolutely been planned, JD Vance is invested in AcreTrader and what's a better way to buy thousand's of acres for pennies on the dollar than to bankrupt farmers? And at the end of the day, I really don't think they deserve a bailout.
are the farmers in dire straits, or are independent farmers in dire straights?
i make the distinction because if the purpose is to make the rich, richer, then this is a feature, not a bug for republicans
Yeah it's just the independent farmers. Here in Arkansas they're either losing their farms or straight up killing themselves, at a brisk pace too.
Happens here too. And who scoops up the land when it gets liquidated? JD goddamn Vance and his vultures.
All part of the plan :(
People like to use the example of Crassus' fire brigade as an analogy for how corporate interests extract value from regular people in society. Crassus and his fire brigade would go around buying burning houses on the cheap, and then put out the fire for the benefit of Crassus, the new owner. There were some who believed that Crassus was setting the fires himself, but the extractive playbook here works whether he was setting them himself or not.
Are agricultural megacorps buying up farms with depressed values and then fixing them so that the values increase? Probably not. They're in basically the same boat with the price of commodities, in terms of the inputs (water, fertilizer, labor, equipment and machinery, fuel, energy) and the outputs (wheat, corn, soybeans, etc.). It's a problem for them, too.
Maybe they have deep enough pockets to ride out the current crisis and will have more to show for it in the end, but for now, they're in the same boat.
The goal is the collapse and consolidation of farms for private equity. JD is being loud about supporting one venture group buying up farms but it wouldn't surprise me if that was a proxy group and the one he is parading is supposed to take on liabilities and shed its assets, typical venture cap behavior.
Despite his troubles, Maxwell remains supportive of Trump, saying that he is “going to be patient,” adding, “I believe in our president.”
However, there is a limit to Maxwell’s patience with Trump. “We’re giving him the chance to follow through with the tariffs, but there had better be results,” he said. “I think we need to be seeing something in 18 months or less. We understand risk—and it had better pay off.”
They're giving him 18 MONTHS?? For fuck sake, these people Do. Not. Learn.
It’s only 24 months. I bet it won’t even take the whole 36 months. Just a quick and easy definitely less than 48 months.
“He needs a third term…”
They didn't recover a large part of their soy bean market during Biden's administration where China picked back up some of the ag products and now they lost all of the market. They're idiots if they think that this will recover any of their markets at any significant part this time around.
Once China develops a buying source they aren't likely to ever return. Why would they?
He's not trying to learn anything, he just wanted an excuse to kick the can down the road 18 months.
This is a farmer. Complaining about his situation now.
Unless he’s confident of a bailout, there may be no 18 months from now. wtf would he want to kick the can down the road?
What hope do we have when a leopard is eating someone’s face and their reaction is they trust the leopard and are willing to let it continue another year and a half? What does it take for them to make the connection?
They didn't learn in his first term. No way they'll learn anything here either. These people are completely fucking stupid and never voted for him based on any kind of intelligence.
What do they even see as a positive outcome of the tariff shenanigans?
That more Americas will.. uhh... buy tofu, I guess?? Enough to make up for the entire Asia markets?
Hopefully they are thinking of the midterms...if we have elections and the GOP gets whiplashed we just might be able to stop the worst of Trump. Imagine we get say 51 democrats in the sesnate along with a majority in the house that's healthly.
“So much of what has happened and what’s going on here is totally out of our control,” Meadows said. “We just want a free, fair, and open market where we can sell our goods... as competitively as anybody else around the world. And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.”
The Republican small government, everyone
Why do I feel like these same people would say Biden’s economy was worse for them?
“The weather is in the control of a higher power,” he added, “and the economy and the markets are in control of Washington, DC.”
Yep! Nothing at all that could have been done about either of these situations. Just two natural disasters sent by god themself. What a shame.
"Oh geez it's not our fault, nothing could be done" they say as they overwhelming voted for Trump and said his policies would be better for them.
It was in their control. They gave it up by voting against their own interests despite being told loudly
And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.
lol. lmao even.
Facts don't care about your feelings bitch!
When I see why the EU has serious issues with American agricultural products, I seriously doubt that superiority.
They probably do have a "superior product" it's just that the superiority comes from yield per acre. Not taste. Agricultural products are a massive industry in the US and bioengineering crops for higher drought tolerance and increased yield is the priority right now. The drawback to more soybean or corn or wheat per m² is nutritional density in the actual harvested product.
What I will say is that I've noticed a trend toward more sustainable farming practices even in the midwest where yield is your family's livelihood. More farmers are beginning to turn to no-till planting practices, pasture rotation, ground cover planting, etc. It's slow, but they're getting coerced by messaging from governmental bodies and research bodies in Illinois like the Department of Natural Resources, Dept. of Agriculture, University of Illinois, etc.
Is there any american agricultural product that's at least a whole step above dirt?
I got you.
Where not even two years before:
Of course this is fine for them.
The consequences don't just effect one side. Musk now has his own town, Starbase, Texas. Marc Andreeson isn't far behind.
There is no being smug, the precedents will have far reaching effects.
We can set our own precedents just like we had to with company towns in the 1800s. I heard about a man named Luigi who supposedly created a similar precedent in the modern era.
all hail the mad kings
techbros reinventing monarchy
You got exactly what you voted for you jackasses.
Go protest, cause I'd love the farmers to be antifa.
They might even already have pitchforks
But at least the leopards are still well-fed
Modern day leopard farmers canNOT understand why grain and soybean farmers forgot where their bootstraps are.
MARC ANDEREESON wanted to buy up farm land in Solarno CA, for his "California Forever" private owned town.
Thiel has expressed similar.
Musk has his own corporate town (Starbase, Texas).
Bezos has an area of Malaysia.
Zuck has parts of Hawaii.
Sam Altman invests in a private town in Honduras.
....they ALL want private towns, fifedoms to rule over in America. And by rule over, I mean SETTING THEIR OWN LAWS.
This is happening.
Anyways, I'm sure this story on Trump bankrupting farmers is completely unrelated. I certainly have no evidence it's related. But I think it's concerning (farmers refusing to sell large tracts of America is what held up the "California Forever" project).
MARC ANDEREESON wanted to buy up farm land in Solarno CA, for his “California Forever” private owned town.
what i hear from locals (mom moved there) is he wanted to buy the dump outside town on which to build his little billionaireburg.
Durrrrrr I'm gonna crack down on immigrant farm labor while I add lots of tariffs to foreign food durrrrrrrrrr
Fuckers trying to make America North Korea again
They wont get any sympathy from me. They voted for it and they got what was coming to them.
Well, at least they don't have to worry about "liberals" inflicting horrible thoughts on them via Colbert or Kimmel.
Are they tired of all the winning yet?
According to the bots in r/Conservative, they are not.
Wisdom is chasing them, but they are faster.
Because conservative ideology requires an other to rally hate against so the base and core voters don't realize its the elites and party leaders adding suffering to common folk lives for the elites short term benefit.
Are they tired of all the winning yet?
They are fucking celebrating in the streets. I am getting so sick of leftists feeling smug about any of this. There is no justice, we are not uniting for any actual resistance movement, we can't even agree on what issues are important to fight and the average liberal is too comfortable still to do anything.
The farmers will get yet another bailout/bribe to keep quiet, it won't impact people broadly, it will fall off the news cycle as they go on to strip away more rights from people and continue to build a fascist empire before leaving the nation a dying husk after all wealth is extracted.
By then, most people will have grown up in that world or forgotten what our country could have been and it will be normal life, as the handful of other nations who resisted fascism soar ahead. The experiment is over, it had a good run.
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
You play the martyr on the Fox TV
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Tariffs for nothin, no more sales for me
See the little fascist with the hairplugs and the make up Yeah, buddy, not his own hair That little fascist got his own jet airplane That little fascist, he's a millionaire
We gotta install a puppet president
Custom court judiciary
We got to move these
Republicans
We gotta move these
Color parties
Now that ain't workin', that's the way you do it
\
Lemme tell ya, them guys are dumb
Get a MAGA tattoo on your little finger
Wear a MAGA diaper on your bum
They will get bailed out.
The people who vote Republican, and vote trump. They scream and screech about government spending. They complain about helping people with food stamps, free school lunches for kids. They reject Medicare for all and relieving college tuition debts. They vote to give tax decreases to billionaires who have 500 million dollar yachts, multiple hundred millions dollar mansions that sit empty, Lamborghinis that just sit there and never get driven.
They'll get bailed out with tax dollars. And they'll continue being hypocrites until they die.
They're not against government benefits. They just believe that 90% of the recipients are lying, lazy, liberal commie, transgender, urban criminal freeloaders who just don't want to work. If we could just get rid of all the abusers then the programs would have enough money to pay to the people who really deserve and need it (ie themselves).
They've already been bailed out. To the tune of $42B so far this year.
https://www.fb.org/market-intel/disaster-assistance-fuels-2025s-farm-income-rebound?_hsmi=379596581
That's the first step. The next step will be blaming the farmers for not fixing their problem, in whatever nebulous fashion they should have.
When it's the farmer's fault, no more bailouts. That's when AcreTrader will show up.
They’ve already been bailed out. To the tune of $42B so far this year.
"That's socialism!!" /s
Biggest welfare queens in the world.
Every accusation is a confession from conservatives.
No way of knowing this would happen says people who were told repeatedly what would happen, shown the plan of what would happen, and given past historical examples of what would happen.
Complains that Americans are too lazy to milk cows and doesn't realize they are part of that group. Doubt they will learn anything.
We're well on our way towards famine.
Well, you folks are just speed running the apocalypse, aren't you.
Pestilence, War and now potentially Famine.
I think it’s more of the old republic Roman issue, the small farmers are being eaten up by giant corporate mega farms. Food production will continue but as a monopoly, where they can charge you $100 for a head of lettuce if they feel like it.
No, you're not. The average US consumer, even those who are desperately poor, still has significantly more buying power than the vast majority of the planet. A collapse in American agriculture will just mean a vast upswing in food imports, because for most of the world it will always be more profitable to sell that food to a US grocery chain than it will be to sell it locally. This will increase costs for US consumers, and push more Americans into poverty, but it won't cause a famine in the USA.
What you are well on your way towards is causing famines across vast portions of the world that aren't you. Famines that Americans will barely even notice, much less care about.
Yeah poor people can just make more money to buy the more expensive food, it's genius
IDK, there are already a lot of people hanging on by a thread in the US. A collapse in domestic production that leads to higher prices will push more people under the "secure" line. I think it'll also cause food shortages worldwide but I think you're overestimating how many Americans will be insulated.
Well the Trump cronies are investing in their failure. I’m sure there will be ample debt based sharecropping opportunities working for the shareholders like Vance and theil in their future.
I guess they have very short memories
theres this farmer youtuber who was talking about this. She is like everyones like we never thought he would do this and she is like. You 100% knew he would do this from both his first term and everything he said before winning election.
Tbf, no, everyone criticized the "adults in the room" the first time around, myself included, for not doing anything constructive. We were wrong.
It's not wrong to demand accountability and action from leaders. Part of America's problem is that we don't do that enough.it's been since Obama's first election in 08 since the Democrats have had an open, untainted primary and we've still seen no major shakeups or changes to the leadership, just business as usual. The problem is that we're stuck in a system with only two real choices and there's no real solid way for the average voter to hold the leadership accountable. It's vote for our guy or the guy who's followers are throwing Nazi salutes wins.
We need to focus less on the presidential election and senators. We need to actually have some way of affecting government outside of election years. To my mind the first steps are state level elections and the house. We need to support third party candidates at the local and state level and we need to support things like the interstate compact that would have states cast their electorial votes for whoever wins the national popular vote. We need to focus on changing the electorial system so that proportional representation is used in the house and at the state level and make gerrymandering much more difficult. We need to change to a voting system like STAR which makes the election result better reflect the true will of the voters.
I'll buy tofu $1 per pound
I don't live in the USA, but I wanted to check.
Remind me, do areas that have more agriculture/farmland usually vote for the Democrats, or the Republicans?
I'm kidding, I know the answer.
Suck it farmer's. You voted for this, now enjoy the "freedoms" that you have been granted by your political party.
"fuckin whoops"
But they'll continue to vote Republican.
Maybe don't be a fucking moron and vote for a fucking moron then???
I hope leopards run wild in this country. Maybe a brain cell will rub against another braincell and spark a fucking thought in their tiny little skulls.
Force the farmers to pay back the bailouts back. Hypocrisy needs to carry severe monetary punishments
Oh also a Democrat farmer's perspective on this white debacle of Republican proportions.
Thanks for the link!
lmaoooooo fuck ‘em they shouldn’t have been that fucking stupid and greedy.
Don't worry! Trump will hand them $12 billion like he did last time.
"One for you, three for me, one for you, three for me..."
Fear not farmers Bill Gates will buy that land off you and you can finally Make America Gates Again.
Or more likely JD Vance himself. He was (is?) invested in AcreTrader, they takeover farm land and turn ownership into share-based investment vehicles.
Better than Make America Gaetz Again. All that young soil 🥵
Insert Nelson meme, "haha!""
This is no mistake. The general plot is to create a situation where land can be purchased all across the US at low cost. Then the land will be owned by the wealthy for data centres and corporate owned and governed cities, states and mini nations (e.g. the breaking up of US into smaller corporate nations).
This already happened. Like 70+ years ago.
Started happening. There's still plenty of consolidation left to go. Hence the current pressure.
What about the last time he was president?
Have the day you voted for o7
Sad trombone.
Thoughts and prayers.
Oh well. Vote better next time, assclowns.
Its no use saying that you dont know nothin. They're still gonna getcha if you dont do something. Even the hero gets a bullet in the chest, oh yes. Once upon a time in the west
Oopsie poopsie
Oh noes! Reich Wingers getting exactly what they demanded, and feeling the consequences of it!
They wanted money for nothing
And their chicks for free.
Perpetual Mo
tionney Machine