This past Saturday at the Fall Fiber Festival and Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials near Orange, Virginia, something remarkable happened. During the afternoon sheep shearing demonstration, the 70 something farmer from Louisa, teared up when describing how he came to raising sheep and learning how to shear them. He paused, wiping tears from his eyes, sheepishly apologized. He had heart surgery last year, he said. The crowd in the tent was silent, . . . .then a booming gruff, male voice, said, ‘No apology necessary.’ He paused, ‘in fact more people in this country need heart surgery.’ Applause erupted in the crowded tent.
I don’t know the politics of the farmer shearing the sheep, I don’t know the politics of the man comforting the farmer, I don’t know the politics of the crowd, and I certainly don’t know the politics of the sheep. It was a moment of vulnerability, and the response was compassion, a common humanity.
The man with the gruff voice called out the heartlessness of our partisan divide, the hate mongers, the primal chest pounding in some quarters. The farmer then got a 50-pound sheep out of the pen, rassled him into position, and started to shear her with traditional shears. Impressive for anyone, much less a 70-something farmer who recently had heart surgery.
Farming is not for the faint of heart. My wife’s side of the family were Kansas wheat farmers starting in the 1920s. Her mom was one of 12 kids, the first one arriving at 16, the last at 46. Her mom remembers the dust, the jack rabbits, and the wheat. She left when she could. They worked hard, took second jobs to make ends meet. Alas, the farm was sold in the 2003.
Let me snatch your mind back from the precipice of agrarian nostalgia and sentimentality and bring you back to reality.
Americans have long been fascinated by the imagery of a yeoman farmer clearing the fields and tilling the soil. Hard work, independence, self-sufficiency were the supposed hallmarks of America’s rural farmers. American Historian Richard Hofstadter called it the “agrarian myth,” arguing that the “more commercial” America became, “the more reason it found to cling in imagination to the noncommercial agrarian values.” Adding, that “the American mind was raised upon a sentimental attachment to rural living…. The agrarian myth represents a kind of homage that Americans have paid to the fancied innocence of their origins.” Farmers, Hofstadter wrote, are businessmen, first and foremost.
During several past national election seasons, “Farmers For Trump” road signs dotted Louisa County. I always thought the imagery of the word “farmer” was meant to evoke the ‘agrarian myth’ of good honest living, hard work, self-sufficiency, independence and somehow attaching it to a man who has never had a callous from working with his hands, never used a shovel, much less an axe. Who has probably spent more cash on manicures than many farmers have paid for their tractors.
Trump’s policies hurt farmers, to include those in Louisa County. His tariff war, especially his war on Beijing, is bankrupting farmers across the country.
Here are the ground truths.
Virginia’s top agricultural export countries in 2022 were China, Canada, Venezuela (go figure), and Taiwan in that order. Virginia farmers did close to $1.5 billion business with China. Canada came in at a distant second with $370 million. Exports are crashing to these countries because of Trumps policies.
China buys 60 percent of the global supply of soybeans. This year, however, they have bought ZERO soybeans from American farmers. So, 60 percent of the potential Virginia’s and Louisa County’s soybean sales, gone, evaporated, zilch, in the flick of a social media post.
Because of Trump’s tariff war with China, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil are now China’s biggest suppliers of soybeans. According to the latest figures I have, Virginia harvested 21.6 million bushels of soybeans in 2023 and that jumped in 2024 to 26.4 million bushels, most destined for export markets, primarily China. This years harvest is at risk of being unsold.
Louisa in 2022 had 8058 acres of soybeans under cultivation. At 44 bushels per acre, that amounts to 354,552 bushels. Assuming that the same number of approximate acres are being grown today, at today’s market value that come out to about $3.6 million. A potential loss of $3.6 million to Louisa farmers if it is left unsold. Net cash income for Virginia and Louisa farmers is dropping because of Trump’s policies.
Crashing commodity prices and massive loss of export buyers is why Trump is promising a farmer bailout. More free cash handouts to loyal farmers. This worked during his first term when Trump bailed out farmers to the tune of billions of dollars because of failed tariff wars. They voted for him again in droves. Why? I don’t know. Makes no sense.
The White House recently proposed a $38 to $50 billion bailout for America’s farmers. That’s about $16k per farmer. I know it won’t be disbursed equally across the board, but it is a bailout for the row crop farmers who are losing export business because of Trump’s shortsighted and counterproductive policies.
In a supreme act of irony, Trump wants to use tariff dollars – basically a consumption tax Americans like you and I pay — to fund the famer bailout. Picking my pocket to give free cash to his farmer voting base. Problem is, Trump can’t just reach into the Treasury and take the money, like a personal piggy bank. He needs Congress to authorize the funds.
Farmers voted for Trump for a variety of reasons, one being they thought he is a good businessman. Well, you got screwed…. again. Time to get beyond the culture wars, hate mongering, and bullshit rhetoric of who is and who is not a real American.
According to government stats analyzed for a 2024 Politico article titled Did Trump or Biden deliver more for farmers? The answer may surprise you, “Biden has been better for farmers than Trump. Net farming income has actually gone up since the Democrat entered the White House. On average, net farm income has totaled $165 billion between 2021 and 2023, compared to $94 billion between 2017 and 2019. Farm income reached a record high of nearly $189 billion in 2022.”
The 2022 Census of Agriculture Louisa County Profile, a U.S. Department of Agriculture publication, supports Politico’s analysis. According to the profile, net cash farm income in Louisa County increased 2269 percent (yes, 2269) between 2017 and 2022. The market value of products sold increased 143 percent over the same period. Mostly, Louisa’s 452 farmers did well under Biden, but many threw away these Biden gains made after Trump’s first term mistakes, exacerbated by Trump’s thoroughly horrible mismanagement of the pandemic response, by helping to elect Trump to a second term. 100 days into his second term Trump later needs to bailout farmers once again. Enough, no?
I think I made a good economic case that voting for Trump is bad for business. Like sheep, he is herding farmers in order to fleece them. He isn’t much better in most measures regarding democracy and rule of law as well. Please vote for Abigail Spanberger for Governor this November, and in the mid-terms in 2026, help throw out 5th District representative John McGuire so Congress can do its constitutional duty to reign in Trump’s dash toward autocracy and bankrupting America’s farmers. A vote for Democrats is a vote to return to prosperity.
