Local farmer reacts to Trump Administration $12 billion farm aid package
Erika McGuire
HARRISBURG, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri farmers will soon receive a check from the Trump Administration, which announced a $12 billion aid package Monday to help American farmers struggling after tariffs on China were raised.
Troy Douglas, a 39-year farmer who operates 28 farmers in Mid-Missouri, went viral in September after addressing Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) about his concerns for the future of his business.
Douglas grows corn, soybeans, and wheat, along with operating a sizable cattle business. He said the aid package is only a short-term fix.
“It’s a good short term solution, but it’s not going to make us whole, it’s a band-aid,” Douglas said. “Something that’s frustrating to local farmers is those payments aren’t going to go out until February. That’s three months basically and you know there’s some people that are struggling and need cash flow,”
The one-time payment will be delivered to farmers starting at the of February, according to the Trump Administration. It will be capped at $155,000 per farm or person, and only entities that make less than $900,000 a year will be eligible for aid..
According to the Trump Administration, $11 billion will go toward row-crop farmers while another $1 billion will be for specialty crops like fruits and vegetables. The money will come from tariff revenue, according to the president.
While the one-time payment will help farmers, Douglas said the cap limits the impact.
“That limits a large farm, there’s ways to get around some of that payment limit. But I think it will really help the small guys,” Douglas said. “If you compare what the smaller farms like the thousand acre farm versus the 3,000 acre farms are getting, it’s not enough to make the big farmer whole, but anything will help,”
Douglas said he is unsure how much he will receive but believes it will help cover 2025 expenses and costs into next year.
“I don’t know anyone that’s going to turn the money down, We’d rather have good markets and not manipulated markets and do without the payments, but the payments are a bridge to maybe farm another year,” Douglas said.
Trade tensions with China have hit soybeans farmers like Douglas hard, largely due to reduced exports from the U.S.
Prior to 2018, Douglas says, China roughly bought 60% of all of the soybeans produced in the U.S. per year.
This year, China has purchased roughly 3% of soybeans produced in the U.S. this year.
The retaliatory tariffs have placed U.S soybean farmers at a 20% disadvantage compared to South American competitors. As a result, China has begun buying soybeans from Brazil, which shipped nearly 16 million tons of soybeans to China in March, its largest monthly volume ever.
Douglas also said he did not vote for President Trump in 2024 or back in 2018. He said he wants Trump to understand that American farmers are struggling and have been struggling since Trump’s first term.
Douglas added that he also wants the president to know that inflation is a chain reaction.
“He needs to understand inflation and it’s no matter what kind of business you’re in, it affects you from buying groceries to buying parts or fuel,” Douglas said. “He keeps talking about our energy cost went down, out farm diesel cost is $0.07 cheaper than it was a year ago, that’s not much of a correction on inflation,”
Douglas added that fertilizer costs are also higher than last year, putting additional pressure on farmers’ budgets.
“I think if the trade tensions stay the way they are, that there will be another payment to keep us, I mean somebody’s got to feed this world and feed this country and most people don’t understand our markets,” Douglas said.
To have a permanent solution, Douglas said he believes tariffs need to be removed.