At worlds largest farm show many say US government aid has helped ease their pain but what they want is trade security
It’s been a long, strange summer for America’s corn belt. The weather has been perfect. Farmers are expecting a record soybean crop. But at the world’s largest farm show in Boone, Iowa, this week the talk was of where they will sell it, tariffs and Twitter.
For months, America’s farmers have been “at the spear point” of an international trade dispute started by the Trump administration, says Davie Stephens, a Kentucky farmer and vice-president of the American Soybean Association. Now there are signs of a breakthrough as Canada and Mexico get closer to cutting a deal.
Even before he started running for office, Donald Trump railed against Nafta – the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement that guides trade relations between the US, Canada and Mexico – famously calling it “the worst trade deal ever”. While farmers at Farm Progress have their issues with it, and many voted for Trump, what they really want is certainty. Corn, and soy, doesn’t grow in a day. Sadly, for them, certainty is not a Trumpian trait.
Still, Stephens is hopeful about the tentative deal with Mexico, and is impressed with Trump’s team. “The hope is that we are closer to a resolution. They can call it Nafta or whatever, doesn’t matter to us,” he said.
Stephens’s sentiment was echoed across the 80 acres of Farm Progress, which ended on Thursday. Chatting besides the 600-plus exhibits of farming equipment – the site is punctuated by colossal spiky harvesters and other Lovecraftian machines that look better suited to space exploration than food production – farmers seem cautiously optimistic that Trump has their back.
It helps that the Department of Agriculture has drawn up a $12bn aid package for farmers to help offset losses from retaliatory tariffs on American exports. But “trade not aid” is what most farmers say they want. And they want a deal now. Harvesting has already begun in parts of the country. Soon the seed sellers will be calling and farmers will have to start planning how much – and what – they are going to grow next year. Commodity prices have collapsed thanks to the tariffs and oversupply. Loans need to be renegotiated. Farming is a slow business and planning is everything. Disquiet now could soon become something closer to panic if a deal isn’t done.
“We need a deal sooner rather than later. A deal that will be good for everybody,” says Rich Schwemen, a local crop consultant.