"....I guess we should have paid attention to the Project 2025 document" - head of Kansaa Farmer's Union

bnew

Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
64,002
Reputation
9,809
Daps
174,353

She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.​


250320-Rebecca-Carlson-aa-1236-eebb46.jpg

Rebecca Carlson and her family on their farm, Overlook Orchards, in Michigan.Courtesy Rebecca Carlson

Rebecca Carlson planned to use a USDA grant to hire overseas workers for her cherry harvest. A funding freeze has left her in debt and unsure whether she can hire the workers.

After Donald Trump won the presidency again, Rebecca Carlson was counting on this being the year things turned around for her 1,300-acre farm in northern Michigan.

The farm has been in her family for generations but has struggled over the past several years amidthe rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other operating expenses. Then, last year, bad weather wiped out much of her crop. But the return of Trump, she thought, would help reverse things.

“I was expecting to see a drastic turnaround for the better for my farm because the Republicans have always been for the American farmer,” said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.

Prices for cherries, her main crop, had increased during Trump's first termafter his policies cut down on competition from overseas, and she was hoping to see a similar economic boost this time around. Instead, her farm has been caught up in the widespread government funding freezes , jeopardizing her ability to hire the workers she needs for this season's harvest. It could leave her $200,000 in debt if she's unable to access the grant money that had been awarded to her farm.

“I’ll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,” Carlson said. “During Trump’s first administration, a lot of farmers — not all, but a lot of farmers — saw the positive side to his tariffs and to his agricultural dealings."

"Now, we’re not seeing that," she said. "Now, we’re seeing the actual opposite.”

Voters in rural and agriculture-reliant areas have been one of Trump’s most consistent bases of support since he first emerged on the political scene a decade ago. But the early days of his second administration have introduced a lot of risk to this sector of the economy. Trump's proposed tariffs could drive up the price of grain and fertilizers while lowering demand overseas for U.S. agriculture products. Immigration crackdowns could cripple farm workforces, where an estimated 40% of workers lack the proper documentation to work in the U.S. Meanwhile, spending cuts and freezes have directly affected federally funded programs that provide loans and grants to farmers.

Trump has acknowledged his support from farmers and talked about how his policies would benefit them by reducing imports of food from abroad, which could increase demand for some U.S.-grown products.

“Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer — I love the farmer,” Trump said during his address to Congress this month.

But Trump acknowledged that there will be “an adjustment period” as his policies take shape. The president added that farmers will “probably have to bear with me again” as they did during his first term, when the tariffs he put in place on China resulted in retaliatory tariffs on a range of U.S. agriculture products, causing U.S. exports to China to tumble.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Friday that the department was looking into program to help "mitigate any economic catastrophes that could happen to some of our farmers." Asked whether that would include direct payments, Rollins said, "We're working that out right now."

While the situation with tariffs moves forward, Carlson says she doesn’t have much time to wait to solve her problems. Her farm had been awarded a grant worth $400,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the costs associated with hiring seasonal workers from overseas through the H-2A visa program, which farmers have used for years to hire temporary agricultural workers.

The USDA describes the program on its website as a way to address labor shortages on American farms and reduce illegal immigration. It's backed by $65 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan, a Covid stimulus bill passed in 2021.

But now, funding for that program appears to be frozen. Farmers like Carlson have been unable to get reimbursed for expenses they’ve already incurred under the grant, and there has been no official guidance from the USDA on whether they will get reimbursed for future expenses, said Michael Marsh, head of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a trade group that works with the many farmers using the H-2A visa program.

“It’s kind of like have the rug pulled out from underneath you,” Marsh said.

Recommended​


That’s left farmers having to borrow money while they wait to be reimbursed for expenses they've already paid for under the grant. And it means they are uncertain on whether to move forward with taking on the additional cost of hiring workers from overseas, Marsh said.

“We’re getting right in the middle of the busy season where we’re either planting crops or pruning vines and trees, where we really need the workers here,” said Marsh. “But now, you’re out the money that you’ve been planning on being there for you.”

The Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to a request for comment about the status of the funding.

Farmers aren’t alone in feeling the effects of sweeping cuts and funding freezes across the government, many of which are at the center of court fights. Shortly after taking office, Trump issued executive order s pausing some funds from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act along with funding for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump has also been cutting grants to research institutions and dismantling whole agencies, like USAID, and many of the contracts and grants that come from those agencies.

Carlson was planning to use her USDA grant money to hire 10 temporary workers from Guatemala to help with this year’s harvest. The grant would help pay to house the required workers on her property and the visa fees and airfare to fly the workers to and from the U.S.

The added workers on her farm would have been a game changer, she said. Since taking over the family farm in 2019, most of the labor has been done by her, her husband, two year-round employees and a few local seasonal workers. With the added help, she could run multiple shifts a day picking cherries to get as much of her crop harvested as possible before it starts to spoil. It also would give her more time with her four children, including her 3-year-old twins.

The program to bring over the foreign workers hasn’t been cheap or easy, but she saw it as the only way to boost her workforce.

“The American worker doesn’t like labor, they don’t like to do laborious jobs,” Carlsonsaid. “They don’t want to do the hard labor, and that’s what’s frustrating, because we would love to hire U.S. workers, but we can’t get them to show up. We can’t get them to follow through. We can’t get them to finish the season.”

Carlson has been trying to get an answer from the USDA about the status of her grant, but her grant manager told her that they were “awaiting guidance from leadership.” When she followed up more recently, she received an out-of-office email.

“We have had no direction from our grant project managers," she said. "We’ve asked them, are we supposed to continue meeting our milestones and continue meeting our goals? Or do we stop and wait? All we get back with a response is an automated message.”

To prepare for the workers arrival, including renovating housing on her property to bring it up to code, Carlson has already spent $200,000 of her own money that she was expecting to get reimbursed under her grant’s contract. Without that money in her bank account, she doesn’t expect to have the funds to pay her existing staff to get through the growing season.

Carlson also doesn’t have much time left to make a decision about whether to spend even more to bring workers over. By April 5, she is supposed to have purchased the airfare for the workers she was planning to hire, who were supposed to arrive in May.

“We’re at that point where if we don’t get this funding, there could be issues of bankruptcy,” she said. “The American farmer is failing right now because you’re freezing funding meant to help the American farmer.”

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News.[/img]
 

King Poetic

Slave Driver
Supporter
Joined
Feb 15, 2013
Messages
102,047
Reputation
20,939
Daps
497,067
Reppin
Los Angeles County, California
They didn’t read because they automatically jumped to the conclusion that trump will only focus on immigration which they thought yeah yeah get the Hispanics out of here

And when trump said DEI they also said yeah yeah fukking blacks getting screwed

Trump knew his dumb uneducated whites focus will be strictly on that while he and elon was in the back of the bank robbing everyone blind..

If u especially have a farm business you need to know politics idiots
 

Jx2

Veteran
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
14,406
Reputation
4,133
Daps
70,156
Reppin
NULL

She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.​


250320-Rebecca-Carlson-aa-1236-eebb46.jpg

Rebecca Carlson and her family on their farm, Overlook Orchards, in Michigan.Courtesy Rebecca Carlson

Rebecca Carlson planned to use a USDA grant to hire overseas workers for her cherry harvest. A funding freeze has left her in debt and unsure whether she can hire the workers.

After Donald Trump won the presidency again, Rebecca Carlson was counting on this being the year things turned around for her 1,300-acre farm in northern Michigan.

The farm has been in her family for generations but has struggled over the past several years amidthe rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other operating expenses. Then, last year, bad weather wiped out much of her crop. But the return of Trump, she thought, would help reverse things.

“I was expecting to see a drastic turnaround for the better for my farm because the Republicans have always been for the American farmer,” said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.

Prices for cherries, her main crop, had increased during Trump's first termafter his policies cut down on competition from overseas, and she was hoping to see a similar economic boost this time around. Instead, her farm has been caught up in the widespread government funding freezes , jeopardizing her ability to hire the workers she needs for this season's harvest. It could leave her $200,000 in debt if she's unable to access the grant money that had been awarded to her farm.

“I’ll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,” Carlson said. “During Trump’s first administration, a lot of farmers — not all, but a lot of farmers — saw the positive side to his tariffs and to his agricultural dealings."

"Now, we’re not seeing that," she said. "Now, we’re seeing the actual opposite.”

Voters in rural and agriculture-reliant areas have been one of Trump’s most consistent bases of support since he first emerged on the political scene a decade ago. But the early days of his second administration have introduced a lot of risk to this sector of the economy. Trump's proposed tariffs could drive up the price of grain and fertilizers while lowering demand overseas for U.S. agriculture products. Immigration crackdowns could cripple farm workforces, where an estimated 40% of workers lack the proper documentation to work in the U.S. Meanwhile, spending cuts and freezes have directly affected federally funded programs that provide loans and grants to farmers.

Trump has acknowledged his support from farmers and talked about how his policies would benefit them by reducing imports of food from abroad, which could increase demand for some U.S.-grown products.

“Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer — I love the farmer,” Trump said during his address to Congress this month.

But Trump acknowledged that there will be “an adjustment period” as his policies take shape. The president added that farmers will “probably have to bear with me again” as they did during his first term, when the tariffs he put in place on China resulted in retaliatory tariffs on a range of U.S. agriculture products, causing U.S. exports to China to tumble.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Friday that the department was looking into program to help "mitigate any economic catastrophes that could happen to some of our farmers." Asked whether that would include direct payments, Rollins said, "We're working that out right now."

While the situation with tariffs moves forward, Carlson says she doesn’t have much time to wait to solve her problems. Her farm had been awarded a grant worth $400,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the costs associated with hiring seasonal workers from overseas through the H-2A visa program, which farmers have used for years to hire temporary agricultural workers.

The USDA describes the program on its website as a way to address labor shortages on American farms and reduce illegal immigration. It's backed by $65 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan, a Covid stimulus bill passed in 2021.

But now, funding for that program appears to be frozen. Farmers like Carlson have been unable to get reimbursed for expenses they’ve already incurred under the grant, and there has been no official guidance from the USDA on whether they will get reimbursed for future expenses, said Michael Marsh, head of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a trade group that works with the many farmers using the H-2A visa program.

“It’s kind of like have the rug pulled out from underneath you,” Marsh said.

Recommended​


That’s left farmers having to borrow money while they wait to be reimbursed for expenses they've already paid for under the grant. And it means they are uncertain on whether to move forward with taking on the additional cost of hiring workers from overseas, Marsh said.

“We’re getting right in the middle of the busy season where we’re either planting crops or pruning vines and trees, where we really need the workers here,” said Marsh. “But now, you’re out the money that you’ve been planning on being there for you.”

The Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to a request for comment about the status of the funding.

Farmers aren’t alone in feeling the effects of sweeping cuts and funding freezes across the government, many of which are at the center of court fights. Shortly after taking office, Trump issued executive order s pausing some funds from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act along with funding for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump has also been cutting grants to research institutions and dismantling whole agencies, like USAID, and many of the contracts and grants that come from those agencies.

Carlson was planning to use her USDA grant money to hire 10 temporary workers from Guatemala to help with this year’s harvest. The grant would help pay to house the required workers on her property and the visa fees and airfare to fly the workers to and from the U.S.

The added workers on her farm would have been a game changer, she said. Since taking over the family farm in 2019, most of the labor has been done by her, her husband, two year-round employees and a few local seasonal workers. With the added help, she could run multiple shifts a day picking cherries to get as much of her crop harvested as possible before it starts to spoil. It also would give her more time with her four children, including her 3-year-old twins.

The program to bring over the foreign workers hasn’t been cheap or easy, but she saw it as the only way to boost her workforce.

“The American worker doesn’t like labor, they don’t like to do laborious jobs,” Carlsonsaid. “They don’t want to do the hard labor, and that’s what’s frustrating, because we would love to hire U.S. workers, but we can’t get them to show up. We can’t get them to follow through. We can’t get them to finish the season.”

Carlson has been trying to get an answer from the USDA about the status of her grant, but her grant manager told her that they were “awaiting guidance from leadership.” When she followed up more recently, she received an out-of-office email.

“We have had no direction from our grant project managers," she said. "We’ve asked them, are we supposed to continue meeting our milestones and continue meeting our goals? Or do we stop and wait? All we get back with a response is an automated message.”

To prepare for the workers arrival, including renovating housing on her property to bring it up to code, Carlson has already spent $200,000 of her own money that she was expecting to get reimbursed under her grant’s contract. Without that money in her bank account, she doesn’t expect to have the funds to pay her existing staff to get through the growing season.

Carlson also doesn’t have much time left to make a decision about whether to spend even more to bring workers over. By April 5, she is supposed to have purchased the airfare for the workers she was planning to hire, who were supposed to arrive in May.

“We’re at that point where if we don’t get this funding, there could be issues of bankruptcy,” she said. “The American farmer is failing right now because you’re freezing funding meant to help the American farmer.”

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News.[/img]
The only line I somehow caught in that entire pool of crocodile tears was “I still bleed republican..”

They will bleed themselves to literal death before admitting they’re part of a death cult. fukk all of these idiots
 

bnew

Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
64,002
Reputation
9,809
Daps
174,353

Farmers face steep losses in the middle of Trump's trade war and funding cuts​


Jennifer Gilkerson never imagined that her West Virginia farm’s freeze-dried fruits would get caught up in political fights in Washington, D.C.

240627-shannon-pettypiece.jpg


But last Friday, she learned that funding for a U.S. Agriculture Department program that helps schools and food banks buy products from local farmers like her had been cut . Without those federal dollars, Gilkerson no longer expects local schools to be able to buy her freeze-dried fruits, which she has already spent thousands of dollars preparing to produce.

“We’re just in such a state of shock. We just don’t really even know how to respond to all this. We thought that this was sacred and really untouchable,” Gilkerson said. “Everyone thinks all farmers voted for this, but we did not vote for this.”

From funding cuts to tariffs , farmers have found themselves caught in the middle of President Donald Trump’s escalation of trade wars and efforts to slash billions of dollars in spending, leaving a growing number now struggling to find markets for their products and facing the risk of steep losses for the year ahead.

Trump has acknowledged the impact his trade policies will have on farmers, telling them in his address to Congress this month that there will be “a little bit of an adjustment period” and that farmers will have to “bear with me again.” When it comes to spending cuts at the Agriculture Department and other agencies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a CNBC interview this week, the current federal spending levels are unsustainable and there will have to be a “detox period” for the economy as cuts are made.

But farmers across the country — from small organic berry growers in Maine to large-scale hog producers in Iowa — say those policy changes could cripple their businesses if they aren’t resolved soon, wreaking long-lasting damage on the U.S. agriculture industry.

“I think any farmer will tell you that we will take some short-term pain, but do not make this a long-term extended trade war, because that just won’t be good for agriculture or for the country in general,” said Bob Hemesath, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and raises hogs. “I know that this is the way President Trump believes he’s going to create better markets long term. I hope he’s correct. But my fear is that once you lose those markets to other suppliers, it’s very hard to get them back.”

U.S. farmers depend on exporting their products because for many products, like corn, the country produces more than it is able to consume. Foreign buyers are also more willing to buy agricultural products people in the United States don’t want, like chicken feet or cow tongues.

But those overseas markets are now in question as Trump threatens to ratchet up the amount of tariffs charged on products being shipped into the United States — a move that is already causing other countries to retaliate with their own tariffs on U.S. goods.

"I've been at this for 45 years, and for all of those years, any time there is a trade dispute with another country, they recognize that our soft underbelly, where we really get sensitive, is when you start messing with our food exports," said Chuck Conner, head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. "That has always been the case, and that is the case this time around on steroids."

Farmers say they are already seeing the effects after Trump put an additional 20% tariff on Chinese imports, after which China responded with an additional 10% to 15% tariff on U.S. agriculture products, including pork, wheat and corn.

After Trump briefly placed a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada last month, cattle farmers in Maine got notices that their grain prices would be increasing 15%, said Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Trump later walked back some of the tariffs, but he also warned that more are to come. A farmer also told Alexander that his price quote for a greenhouse shot up this weekafter Trump put a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.

“Consumers are going to see these impacts if farms are not able to carry through with their plans or their costs increase dramatically, whether it’s in what products are actually available this year or that the cost is going to have to go up because farmers can’t shoulder all of those changes themselves,” Alexander said.

Tariffs hit amid issues with federal aid​


Federal funding cuts and freezes, along with staffing shortages at the Agriculture Department, have also been rippling across the U.S. agriculture industry. Farmers say they rely on grants and loans from the Agriculture Department to help make their products more affordable for U.S. consumers and weather the natural volatility in the market for agriculture commodities.

As Gilkerson tries to figure out a new market for her farm’s freeze-dried fruits, another group of West Virginia farmers has also been caught up in funding cuts to a separate Agriculture Department program to help promote local foods.

A group of farmers had been working to launch a brand of West Virginia-grown products called Appalachian Cellar. After months of work, they were preparing to begin distributing the brand to grocery stores and other food distributors when the Agriculture Department told them their funding had been cut off as of Jan. 19, the day before Trump entered office.

“I’ve got 31 farmers who are pissed off,” said Spencer Moss, executive director of the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, who was working on launching the line of products. “We are rounding the corner into the planting season, and we are supposed to be ramping up, but we are not. We are unable to ramp up.”

Not only will the group not be getting funding going forward for expenses it had coming up, but it’s unclear whether it will get reimbursed, as planned, for $100,000 in expenses related to the grant it had already paid for, Moss said.

“This is the economy of rural America. West Virginia is a wholly rural state, and so developing this agriculture economy in the state is extremely important,” she said. “These farmers pay their property taxes, they’re business owners, a lot of times they’re commissioners or school board members. These are the drivers that keep rural communities alive. So it feels like a divestment in rural communities across the board.”

Seth Kroeck, a blueberry farmer in Maine, said he received a $50,000 grant to spread 200,000 cubic yards of mulch on his wild blueberries to help improve his crop yields. He has the truck, the fuel and the manpower lined up to spread the mulch and has to get started in the coming weeks as the planting season gets underway.

But he’s unsure whether he will actually get reimbursed by the Agriculture Department, because he knows of several other farmers still waiting to get paid for equipment they purchased under Agriculture Department grants.

“It has really sent a chill among a lot of farmers,” Kroeck said. “You sign a contract with the USDA, you expect that they’re going to pay on it. You would never expect that they’re not going to fulfill their end of the deal. It makes me worry in a broader sense about where we’re heading. So much of what we do with each other is based on that basic trust, and to have that be shattered is very, very worrisome.”

There’s uncertainty as farmers are trying to make decisions at the start of the planting season in many parts of the country.

In Virginia, John Boyd is unsure whether his loan from the Agriculture Department will come through in time for him to buy the seeds he needs to begin planting his soybean crops for this year. Boyd typically gets an Agriculture Department loan in the spring to help cover some of the cost of planting until he can harvest the crops in the fall and use the proceeds to repay the loan.

But so far, the loan money hasn’t come through, and he has been unable to get any update from the Agriculture Department aboutwhether or when it will be available. With just days until he needs to start putting his seeds in the ground, Boydsaid, he’s urgently trying to negotiate a payment plan with his seed supplier or find another way to finance the expense.

“It’s planting season, and there’s a cloud of uncertainty among the agriculture industry with this president,” said Boyd, who is president of the National Black Farmers Association. “I’ve got real debt; I’ve got real expenses. But I also have the will to farm in some sort of way. I can’t tell you how, but I am making calls and trying to put some things in place to get through this crisis the president has put us in.”

Soybean prices, which have already been falling amid a glut of supply in the market as production has ramped up globally, have been tumbling in recent years, and he worries they will fall further in a trade war with China.

“What’s alarming here to me as a leader in the farm community and civil rights work is that it’s the farmer that is the first getting affected, and it was the farmer that delivered for this president,” Boyd said. “They were all in for Trump, and they are the first in line to be affected.”

Prices for soybeans, like other agricultural products, including corn, wheat and pork, are set not by the individual farmers but by a wider commodities market, which factors in the global supply and demand. If demand for U.S. agriculture products from a major buyer, like China, goes down as a result of tariffs, so can the price.

“In order to get a fair price, you need a good, steady market, and the president is disrupting the market,” Boyd said.

Farmers have been through Trump’s trade wars before in 2018 and 2019, when he imposed tariffs on China, which retaliated with its own tariffs on U.S. farm products, sending sales tumbling. In response, Trump set up a payment program during his first term to compensate some of the affected farmers. The amount of payments doled out was about equivalent to the revenue the United States collected from the tariffs on Chinese imports.

Trump hasn’t said whether he will implement a similar payment plan again. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s moves are intended to improve the longer-term picture for farmers by ultimately creating a more level playing field overseas.

“He understands that the best way to get our farmers, our ranchers and our fishermen's produce and products in the rest of the world — which they block, India blocks our farmers, all these countries block our farmers — the way to grow it is to make deals with them where they have to understand the power of the U.S. economy,” Lutnick said in a Bloomberg TV interview Thursday.

In the meantime, farmers are trying to figure out how to pay for their current bills and how to cut costs to lessen their losses.

In Iowa, Hemesath, who is on the board of the National Corn Growers Association and president of Farmers for Free Trade, said he’sbracing for the possibility of losing money on his crops this year if there is no change in policy in the coming months.

“We’re used to the ups and downs in the markets. There’s no doubt about that, but we need to be looking for more markets and building on the markets that we already have,” he said. “So long term, we definitely have to get this resolved to stay viable.”

Shannon Pettypiece

Shannon Pettypiece is senior policy reporter for NBC News.
 
Last edited:

bnew

Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
64,002
Reputation
9,809
Daps
174,353

Commented on Wed Mar 19 20:36:39 2025 UTC

They did vote for it, they just assumed that someone would protect them from themselves.


│ Commented on Wed Mar 19 21:07:40 2025 UTC

│ Which is really fukking stupid because exports to China plummeted by 63%, Amid Trump Tariffs, Farm Bankruptcies And Suicides Rise.

│ So farmers saw this, came around and said "Yes daddy, more please!" Y'all consented to sub in this economic BDSM game, except due to how elections work you can't back out now.

│ │
│ │
│ │ Commented on Wed Mar 19 21:27:42 2025 UTC
│ │
│ │ Well they just picked up 10 billion yesterday. Almost hard to blame the farmers for voting for him when there’s people who gain literally nothing.
│ │
│ │ And when I say almost it’s actually not even close. I just expect less of people who don’t understand long term losses which they’re most definitely experiencing. “Sorry I lost you $100 billion. Here’s a quarter of it back.”
│ │
 
Last edited:
Top