There are 444 counties in the United States classified by the United States Department of Agriculture (is that still around?) as “farming-dependent.” which is defined as counties where either 25% of its earnings come from agriculture, or 16% of the workforce works in farming.
Donald Trump won 433 of those counties, with an average vote of 77.7%. Over 100 of them gave Trump 80% or more of their vote.
So how’s that working out for them?
We’ve already talked about how screwed Nebraska is if Trump gets his wish with mass deportations, and that’s not even taking into account the effect of tariffs and shutting down food aid programs will have. The Washington Post ran a story over the weekend on how one specific Nebraska town, O’Neill, was gutted during the first Trump administration, and how they fear a second cataclysm.
O’Neill is the county seat of Holt County. It voted for Trump 87-13%.
Soybean and corn farmers stand to lose millions of dollars in climate-change-related grants helping them adapt their farms to environmentally friendly practices. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act had allocated $3.05 billion to help farmers with conservation efforts, which is apparently all gone now.
“One project provided assistance to Midwestern farmers to grow organic grains, while another focused on bolstering potato farm operations in Idaho, Washington and Oregon,” reported Reuters. Too bad they voted for “socialism is bad,” conveniently forgetting how dependent they were on socialism.
“No one knows what funding will be available or if key programs will have the staff needed to operate,” National Farmers Union President Rob Larew testified at a Senate committee hearing. “Freezing spending and making sweeping decisions without congressional oversight just adds more uncertainty to an already tough farm economy.”
Farmers are also reporting missed payments from another program that reimburses them for things such as fixing fences. “Missouri cattle producer Skylar Holden posted a series of videos on TikTok this week, saying he had signed a contract with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service for $240,000 for improved water lines, fences and a well,” reported Reuters, noting the USDA had informed him the contract was now frozen. “‘I’ve already done a bunch of the work, already paid for the material and the labor, so I’m out all that cost,’ Holden said in one video, adding, ‘We are possibly going to lose our farm if NRCS doesn’t hold up their contract with us.’” Here’s one of his TikTok videos.
Holden voted for this (he talks about it on his TikTok account), as did his family, friends, neighbors, and community. It’s unclear to me why my tax dollars were paying to fix his fences, but at least he’s now living his values. Congrats, Skylar! You now get to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and no longer need to rely on California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Washington to subsidize your life. (Of course, now he’s “willing to listen” to critics, but “both sides” are bad, and the problem is the left being “hateful.”)
Honestly, I do hope he and his people are learning from this experience. Most won’t, but all we need is 5-10% to see the light, and the electoral math looks significantly different.
Trump’s efforts to kill USAID, a foreign-aid program that feeds hungry people around the world, is costing American farmers billions. For example, the entire Kansas sorghum industry is screwed, which has led to the state’s two Republican senators to jump in support of this government spending, because this is valuable, unlike all the other government spending that doesn’t affect them directly.
“The World Food Programme estimated $340 million in U.S. food aid was idled at domestic ports by order of the Trump administration,” reported the Kansas Reflector. “In total, $566 million in U.S.-grown commodities designated for humanitarian purposes was locked down in warehouses throughout the world.” The Food for Peace program bought $2 billion in farm products every year.
Republicans are finally trying to do something to save USAID with a new bill, but the question remains whether it will work. Maybe farmers should switch to farming bootstraps. Demand would go through the roof.
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