Ranchers in Minnesota and North Dakota back Trump policies such as opening markets and eliminating the estate tax, but they express fatigue with his style and criticize the import of 300,000 tons of beef at a reduced tariff.
Glacier FarmMedia — Like many American farmers, Jake Thompson was unhappy with U.S. President Donald Trump in August. Late that month, Trump announced that the country would import 300,000 tons of beef at a reduced tariff to lower prices for American consumers. The move hurt every cattle rancher in the country, because cattle futures plummeted after the announcement.
The beef import decision was highly unpopular among ranchers, but, in the bigger picture, Trump has been helpful for American farmers and ranchers during his 21 months in office, said Thompson, president of the Minnesota State Cattlemen's Association.
"Yes, Trump is annoying. He shouldn't talk as much as he does. But his policies are actually pretty solid," said Thompson, who along with his brother Nate operates Four Hill Farms near the town of Barnesville, in western Minnesota. There they calve about 240 Black Angus cows and sell bulls and heifers, in addition to farming 3,200 acres of corn, wheat, soybeans and sunflowers. In the third week of October they were harvesting corn in a field east of Barnesville.
However, the decision to import beef from South America still irks Thompson and many other American producers. If the administration wants to lower beef prices for consumers, Thompson asked, why cut the profit margins of producers and not go after beef retailers and wholesalers and their profits?
Thompson highlighted Trump's push for fair and reciprocal trade, and his efforts to get other countries to buy more American products, including beef. "When Trump got in for a second term, they immediately started working with Europe and Australia as trading partners for beef," he said. "We'd never really had either before and now we have (those markets)."
As well, most American producers back Trump's elimination of the so-called "death tax." It is, in essence, an estate tax: a family member who inherits land and other farm assets must pay tax on the appreciation of those assets. "If I died and owned the land, (then) my family would inherit it; from (the value) at which I bought it… they would have to pay a tax on the increase," Thompson explained. "It was like 45 percent…. He (Trump) got rid of that."
Thompson, who knows dozens of producers in northern Minnesota and neighboring states, said Trump has stood up for ranchers and their right to control wolves and other predators.
Trump dominates the news cycle with social media posts and provocative comments from the White House. That strategy is effective if the goal is to stay in the headlines, but it is not the same as government policy.
"What I'm hearing the most from our members is frustration," said Valerie Wagner, president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau. "We want to see meaningful change…. Long-term policy change, not just these short-term fixes that really don't do anything for the future of agriculture."
Wagner made those comments on Oct. 23 at a coffee shop in Jamestown, N.D., 150 kilometers west of Fargo. With her husband and their four children, she runs a mixed farm of 3,200 acres of cropland and a commercial herd of 200 cows in Monango.
Like farm groups in other states, the North Dakota Farm Bureau was disappointed by Trump's backing for low-cost beef imports. That decision was an example of the "sound bite" noise coming out of Washington, Wagner said. "It was touted as, 'here's a solution to bring down prices.' All it did was impact … (producers) who were selling calves at that time."
Wagner and other leaders want to return to normal agricultural policy-making, in which ideas are developed at the grassroots and producers then push for supportive policies in Washington. "We want to see more energy spent on solving problems," Wagner said. "(Get) to the root of the problem."
High diesel and fertilizer prices make life harder for all producers, but some are more worried about another issue: large companies buying farmland for uses other than farming.
In his part of Minnesota, a company is proposing to build a massive 6,000-acre solar farm, Thompson said. Nearly 70 solar projects are at some stage of development in that state. Tied to the solar farms and the electricity they generate is the even bigger issue of data centers.
Some producers in North Dakota oppose plans to build data centers on farmland, and similar controversies are playing out across rural America. Thousands of farmers fear this trend will continue and get worse, Thompson said. "That sort of land grab … does worry a (producer). That's on the forefront of a lot of people's minds right now."
In late October, Wagner was looking forward to the period after the Nov. 3 U.S. legislative elections so that producers, farm groups and politicians can return to some sort of normality. "Let's re-focus on what we can do, long-term."
