Trump joint session speech: "So to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you too. I love you too."

Farmer support for Trump drops​

This Business of Farming: Farmers expected a brief financial falter from new policies aimed at improving market access. Now struggling to stay in business, some question the administration’s strategy.

“You voted for this.” In January 2025, the ag community began hearing that from those who don’t support President Donald Trump’s administration. It isn’t praise.

In our Farm Futures Q1 survey, farmers told us their biggest concerns are Trump and tariffs. In an unusual twist, the two T’s ranked higher than weather in the list of worries. Overall, slightly more than half of the farmer-respondents said the president is performing as expected, 27% gave him lower scores, and 21% said his work is better than expected.

Those numbers reflect a 10-point drop in farmer confidence in this administration.

81% expect that market losses from Trump policies, including tariffs, will cut their income.

Iowa farmer Ed Swinger is one of the farmers who voted for Trump twice, and then went another direction in the last election. “I figured this was exactly what was going to happen: We’d have chaos,” Swinger said in mid-April. “He says he loves the farmers but yet he turns around and does things that aren’t in our best interest sometimes. … He cuts and slashes before he thinks about what the ramifications of it are.”

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Midwest farmers’ struggles test GOP loyalty ahead of midterms​

Farmers in the Midwest are struggling under President Trump’s tariffs and rising costs worsened by the Iran war, testing a key GOP voting bloc as the party seeks to hold on to its control of Congress this November.

Trump was overwhelmingly backed by farmers in 2024 — winning all but 11 of 444 farming-dependent counties, as defined by the Department of Agriculture.

“But things are different now,” [former Pence-aide Marc Short] wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Monday. “President Trump’s trade policies have punched farmers in the mouth, and this time there’s no global pandemic to blame.”
“Republicans who continue to ignore this reality do so at their peril,” Short warned.

“The president is historically unpopular right now nationwide,” Nebraska-based GOP strategist Ryan Horn told The Hill in May. “And while that doesn’t affect Nebraska as much — because it’s a very Republican state — the tariff policies and the war in Iran, they are kind of underreported stories, how hard that is hitting rural America.”

Horn noted tariffs have depressed foreign markets for grain, corn and soybeans, while increasing the cost of fertilizer and equipment, given steel is necessary for things like harvesters and rotary irrigators.

Okay, that's the midwest farmers' struggles. What do we know about the Midwest farmers' daughters?

essentialsaltes said:

'At our doorstep': Flesh-eating parasite closing in on red state after Trump-backed cuts​

Attorney Blake Allen weighed in on the matter: "Screwworms coming back into the U.S. cattle herd/stock is going to potentially devastate the industry and jack up meat prices. Worst part is, this was preventable. Trump & DOGE pushed funding cuts on/destroyed agencies that were directly responsible for fighting this pest."

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Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of our actions.

Flesh-eating screwworm returns to U.S. after 60 years, threatening cattle herd​

The case of New World screwworm was confirmed in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said late Wednesday.

The parasite does not pose a food safety threat, but a wider outbreak could still cost the livestock industry billions of dollars and put additional pressure on beef prices that are already at record highs.

The case is the first confirmed detection of New World screwworm in Texas since 1966, and is the only confirmed case identified in the country so far, said Rollins.

It follows months of warnings from U.S. and Texas agriculture officials and cattle industry leaders, as the pest steadily moved north through Mexico toward the American border.

“For months, the screwworm has advanced rapidly through Mexico in spite of the USDA’s existing gameplan,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said Wednesday, adding that “instead of using every available tool, USDA moved too slowly and relied solely on a partial solution that takes years to fully implement.”

Desk trauma said:

Of course, there is the Ebola outbreak to think of.

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And cancer.