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Last week, the Trump administration announced 12 billion in relief for farmers impacted by tariffs. That is just one reason the year has been difficult for American farms. As NPR's Anusha Mathur reports, some farmers are lobbying for more support, others are losing faith that government is the solution.
ANUSHA MATHUR, BYLINE: First, it was tariffs.
BRENDA RUDOLPH: We sold soybeans. You know, China wasn't taking them. So, like, we were drastically impacted by that.
MATHUR: That's Brenda Rudolph. Her family lives outside Little Falls, a small town in central Minnesota known for thick pine tree forests and thriving agriculture. China has always been a big importer of her soybeans. But this year, Rudolph was caught up in the U.S.-China tariff war. When harvesting in September, she earned about 15% less than she anticipated. In a press conference last week, President Trump said the goal of his latest aid package is to help people like Rudolph.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This relief will provide much-needed certainty to farmers as they get this year's harvest to market and look ahead to next year's crops.
MATHUR: But the farmers I talked to said tariffs were just one cause of uncertainty in 2025. Rudolph is also the president of the Little Falls Farmers Market, where she sells meats directly to customers. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut a billion dollars from programs that helped schools and food banks buy from local farms.
RUDOLPH: With farming, every year is always different, and every farm is different. So that's not new. But what is new is the inconsistency.
MATHUR: The American agriculture industry is deeply intertwined with federal policy. USDA delivers billions of dollars in assistance annually. The most recent census reported that a quarter of all farms participate in USDA's direct payments. But in 2025, the very programs designed to provide stability have been a stressor.
RUDOLPH: It's hard to project of, like, what's going to happen in six months when so many things has changed and been disrupted in the last six months.
MATHUR: The last draw for Rudolph was during the shutdown in October when the government froze the dispersal of payments to SNAP, the nationwide food assistance program.
RUDOLPH: I think a lot of people are just in a state of numbness, where they don't want to think about if there's going to be another government shutdown, and they don't want to worry about what programs are going to be cut.
MATHUR: Rudolph isn't alone in her worries. Farmers use federal subsidies, grants and disaster relief to get them through tough times. Mike Lavender is policy director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, an advocacy group. He said many farmers were shaken by the shutdown because they pay out of pocket for costs with a promise that the government will reimburse them on a set schedule.
MIKE LAVENDER: When you have that sort of model, during a shutdown, those contracts aren't being processed. Payments aren't being made. We're talking about not seeing checks come through that you were planning and building your business structure around.
MATHUR: Some farmers see the government as part of the solution. Wisconsin farmer Carl Flaig has traveled to Washington, D.C., twice to lobby Congress on the Farm Bill. The most recent comprehensive Farm Bill passed in 2018. Flaig thinks it needs major updates.
CARL FLAIG: We need Washington to get us a very strong, long-term Farm Bill with a very good nutrition program in it.
MATHUR: Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Republican John Boozman from Arkansas, told NPR that the Farm Bill is a committee priority, but SNAP isn't a focus of discussions.
JOHN BOOZMAN: Farmers are in a very difficult situation. If you're planting something right now in the ground, you're losing money.
MATHUR: Meanwhile, Vanessa Garcia Polanco from the nonprofit National Young Farmers Coalition is worried that the relationship between young farmers and the government is fraying.
VANESSA GARCIA POLANCO: Farmers right now are in deep economic crisis and really trying to make ends meet in a system that was never designed for them to make a profit. Now farmers feel like that a lot of the infrastructure they have grown used to is really not available to them.
MATHUR: One of those people is Brad Smith. He's an organic vegetable farmer from Michigan. Many of his customers at local markets pay using SNAP. But for the first time, he's questioning whether something he thought was safe is going to stay in place.
BRAD SMITH: It's like whiplash, kind of like you don't really know what's going to stick and what's going to change.
MATHUR: Advocacy groups say if the relationship between the government and farmers frays too deeply, it could have serious implications for food security and national security. Anusha Mathur, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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