Farmers in North Carolina share concerns about tariffs' effects on their businesses after a hard agricultural year

North Carolina farmers worry about tariff effects. 
(Adobe Stock Photo)

President Trump's tariff policies are affecting farmers' harvest plans, and some of them are concerned about the stability of their profits.

Cleve Wootson Jr. wrote in an article for the Washington Post that in North Carolina, farmers are struggling.

“Midway through the spring planting season, farmers in a state whose electoral votes went to Trump in the past three elections are struggling with the unpredictability of his tariffs, which threaten their access to foreign markets and add a heavy dose of uncertainty to an already capricious undertaking. The presidential complications are simultaneously logistical, economic and political,” reported Wootson.

The added stress of new and changing tariffs are not helping an “already difficult agricultural year” in a state that has been hit with a hurricane and drought affecting the whole state, according to what Democratic state representative, Eric Ager, told Wootson.

Eric's brother, Jamie, farms just outside of Asheville and said he, his customers, and colleagues are feeling the stress. Jamie told Wootson that while farmers “are worried that their crops will be taxed out of overseas business,” restaurants he sells to have raised their prices, and a school he provides beef to has had to stop the program that allowed them that opportunity.

These worries rub salt in the wound of farmers who are also having a harder time getting “assistance with support and subsidy programs” due to cuts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.