Opinion: Federal policies targeting farming workforce and income need to be addressed before a bailout is needed

New federal policies seem to take aim at farming
incomes. (Photo by Richard Bell, Unsplash)

U.S. farmers face a rocky future as federal policies cut into sector labor and profitability. "Agriculture stands out as acutely vulnerable to President Donald Trump’s avalanche of tariffs, mass deportations and potential new regulations," writes The Washington Post editorial board. "Farmers don’t need a bailout. They need relief from overregulation and excessive immigration enforcement."

Soybean and corn farmers are "panicking about Trump’s trade wars, which expose them to retaliation from China, Canada and Mexico, their most important export markets," the board writes. Ranchers and produce growers have stood by and watched as "agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended en masse across fields to detain and deport agricultural workers."

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins suggested that Medicaid recipients, who will soon need to meet program work requirements, could replace the migrant workers ICE deported. Her comments "landed like an insult in farming communities," the board adds. 

Dave Puglia, president of Western Growers, a lobby group for produce growers in the West, told the Post, “The men and women who harvest our crops are highly skilled. To anybody who believes they can pick and pack in the field, go try it.”

The current administration’s solution for farmer woes is to send subsidy payments, but those will only help certain types of farms. "Trump’s tax bill included $66 billion in new spending for farm programs," the board writes. "While the generous income support programs may keep many farmers from switching political allegiances, the hit from the Trump administration’s policies won’t be easy to fix."

Using agriculture as political fodder is "unusual in American politics," the board adds. "Yet to be seen are the full economic consequences of going after America’s food producers. . . .On priorities that come at the expense of farmers, it is likely to do some real damage to the food supply. The better approach is to avert the damage, rather than wait to bail out farmers once they grow desperate."