When Farmers Lose, Who Wins?
How Trump’s second‑term policies are devastating small farmers and rewarding corporations
It was always a kind of pact. Rural America put Donald Trump in the White House twice, and in return, he promised to protect the “forgotten men and women” who work the land. Farmers, ranchers, and small‑town communities who felt unseen by Washington embraced Trump’s swagger and his vows to put them first.
But five months into his second term, that pact is showing deep cracks.
Across the heartland, the very voters who cheered him in 2024 are now facing one of the toughest seasons in memory, not only because of floods and droughts, but because of policy choices made in Washington that seem designed to make their lives harder. From gutted weather forecasting to a crippled FEMA, from fields left unharvested after ICE raids to crops rotting in warehouses without buyers, farmers are discovering that the storm they’re facing isn’t just coming from the sky; it’s coming from the Trump administration itself.
Meanwhile, the corporations that dominate the agricultural economy are doing just fine. In some cases, better than fine. With deep pockets, private data, global networks, and the ability to buy distressed land cheap, big agribusiness has weathered the blows that have knocked smaller farmers to their knees, and in some places, they’re thriving.
What’s unfolding in rural America isn’t just a crisis. It’s a transfer of risk, wealth, and power from families who’ve worked the land for generations to the corporations that have long eyed it from their boardrooms.
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Weather, Disaster & Data: How Farmers Were Left Blind
In early spring, long before seeds hit the soil, farmers look to the sky and to the data to decide what, when, and how much to plant. The rhythm of farming has always depended on understanding the seasons, but in an era of more volatile weather and tighter margins, reliable forecasts have become as important as tractors and seed.
That reliability was shattered this year, step by step, month by month.
In February, just weeks into his second term, Trump signed a budget directive slashing NOAA’s climate and weather programs, ordering layoffs at forecasting offices and cutting funding for tornado and hurricane research. Weather balloon launches fell dramatically in March. Farmers who had come to depend on NOAA’s seasonal outlooks and drought maps were left with patchy, delayed information, just as planting decisions loomed.
Then, in April, the Department of Defense announced that it would stop providing microwave satellite data to NOAA. This data, crucial for tracking storms through clouds and darkness and for detecting the sudden intensification of hurricanes, was scheduled to be cut off by the end of July, in the heart of hurricane season. Even after a brief delay, it became clear the program would not continue.
Finally, in May, House Republicans passed an appropriations bill eliminating all funding for the USDA’s 11 regional Climate Hubs. Established in 2014, these hubs have become a lifeline for farmers, translating complex federal climate models into practical advice tailored to each region’s crops, soil, and weather patterns. The hubs stopped issuing guidance almost immediately as staff were reassigned or let go.
For farmers in the Midwest, that means no longer knowing whether late frosts would kill their corn seedlings. In the South, it means less advance warning about the timing and severity of hurricane‑driven rains. Even routine drought monitoring, which guides irrigation and planting decisions, has become erratic.
For the large agribusiness corporations, these cuts were a nuisance, but manageable. With private meteorologists on retainer, proprietary climate models, and operations spread across multiple regions and countries, they could adjust. But for family farmers, who can’t afford a consultant and who stake everything on one patch of land, the loss of federal weather data felt like being sent into battle blindfolded.
And that was just the beginning.
We reported on the cuts to weather forecasting previously. See that here:
When the Storm Hits: FEMA Isn’t Coming
For generations, farmers have lived with a simple truth: you can do everything right and still lose it all to a storm. Tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods don’t care about your politics, your work ethic, or your balance sheet. But at least, until now, when disaster struck, you could count on the federal government to show up.
That faith, too, has been shaken.
In March, after a series of devastating tornadoes ripped through Mississippi and Missouri, farmers and small‑town residents waited weeks for FEMA aid that never arrived. The governor of Missouri declared the delays “unprecedented,” noting it was the longest wait for a disaster declaration in fifteen years. In Mississippi, survivors camped in damaged homes and barns, waiting more than two months for even a trickle of federal support.
This wasn’t a fluke. It was policy.
In April, Trump announced plans to phase out FEMA entirely after the 2025 hurricane season, insisting that states should handle their own disaster response. By June, FEMA’s staff had already been slashed, and internal reports revealed that many field offices were understaffed and unable to respond to even moderate events. While the administration claimed this would “empower the states,” farmers and local officials in smaller, poorer states — the very places most often hit by storms — knew better.
For wealthy corporations with diversified holdings and expensive insurance policies, this was an inconvenience. When one facility flooded or a barn collapsed, they moved operations elsewhere and called their lawyers. But for a family farmer who has everything tied up in one place, and no reserve cash to rebuild a barn, replace drowned livestock, or repair fields torn apart by a flood, the disappearance of FEMA felt like abandonment.
We covered the early signs of this unraveling during tornado season in a previous story here, and since then, the warnings have only grown more urgent.
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The Harvest That Never Came: A Workforce in Hiding
Even farmers who navigated weather chaos and dodged storms still faced a brutal obstacle: an absent labor force. In early June, the administration sent mixed signals, temporarily exempting farms, restaurants, and hotels from escalated ICE raids, acknowledging their dependence on immigrant workers. Within days, however, that exception was rescinded. Raids ramped up under a quota of 3,000 arrests per day, and fear spread.
In California’s Central Coast, farmers told Reuters as much as 70% of their crews vanished overnight, with at least 35 workers detained in a single region. In Nebraska, a meatpacking facility saw 70 arrests, while a New Mexico dairy lost 11 essential employees. Across the industry, workers — undocumented and documented alike — simply stopped showing up.
Produce perished on vines, vegetables lay unharvested, and milk went unprocessed. As one grower put it: “The work is here, the crop is ready, but there’s nobody left to pick it. You just can’t run a farm like this.”
Some farms scrambled to retain crew by offering higher pay, but for many small operations, the damage was irreversible. Harvests were left to rot, and costs spiked under mounting pressure.
For large agribusinesses, however, the blow was cushioned. Corporations with deeper pockets secured H-2A visa workers, relocated operations to less-targeted areas, and automated processes where possible. While small farmers watched their fields go to waste, big firms adapted, and in some cases, bought out struggling neighbors at a discount.
We’ve reported extensively on ICE. See a recent report here:
No Buyers Left: The Collapse of Markets
And if farmers managed to work through weather and labor issues, they often hit yet another wall: missing markets.
By May, USAID had canceled roughly $98 million in U.S.-grown food aid commodity contracts, including wheat, soybeans, and therapeutic nutrition, leaving 60–66,000 metric tons of grain to spoil in storage across Africa, the Middle East, and Texas.
Meanwhile, a flare-up in Trump's trade offensive shook global buyers. On April 2, he declared "Liberation Day" tariffs: a sweeping 10% baseline tax and targeted duties reaching up to 145% on Chinese goods by early April. China retaliated on April 4 with 34% tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports—specifically, soybeans, sorghum, and pork—and by March, Beijing had imposed retaliatory tariffs of 15%–25% on U.S. crops, prompting a shift to Brazilian suppliers. In the first quarter of 2025, U.S. farm exports to China declined by nearly 49%, significantly impacting revenue for soybean and pork producers.
By mid-year, grain silos stood full, prices tumbled, and small farmers, without diversified supply chains or negotiation power, faced ruin.
For large agribusinesses, though, the pain was relative. They had the cash and global reach to negotiate side deals, shift sales to other buyers, or wait out the market downturn. With diversified operations and political connections, they could absorb the losses. However, for small farmers, who are often dependent on a single market, a single crop, and a single season, the collapse was catastrophic.
We’ve reported on the impact of tariffs previously. See some of that reporting here:
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The Perfect Storm & Who Wins From It
For months now, farmers across the country have endured what feels like a perfect storm. The loss of weather data and climate guidance left them planting blind. The gutting of FEMA left them alone when the floods and tornadoes came. ICE raids decimated their crews just as the harvest ripened. And when they somehow managed to bring crops to market, they found the buyers gone, aid contracts canceled, and exports choked by tariffs.
It would be easy to chalk all this up to chaos, to mistake it for the unintended consequences of an administration that simply doesn’t understand farming. But that would be too generous.
If you look closer, you see that while these policies are battering family farmers, the biggest players in agriculture —the corporations with vast landholdings, deep capital, private weather services, and lobbyists in Washington —are not only surviving, but in some cases thriving.
When smaller farms buckle, they are there to buy the land at auction. When markets collapse, they quietly sign side deals overseas. When workers disappear, they have the means to automate, import labor, or relocate. They have the leverage and the lifeboats, and every crisis just increases their market share.
It is hard not to see a pattern in this: risk is heaped onto small farmers and rural communities, while profit and power consolidate in corporate boardrooms.
Trump came to office promising to champion the “forgotten” Americans of the countryside. Instead, his administration has delivered them into the hands of the same corporate interests that have been squeezing them for decades.
This perfect storm didn’t just happen. It was built, and it has a winner.
It isn’t the farmers.
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Bibliography:
Associated Press. “While Trump overhauls FEMA, Mississippi tornado survivors await assistance.” March 28, 2025.
Axios. “New NOAA document spells out deeper Trump cuts.” July 1, 2025.
“Eerie silence hangs over Central Coast farm fields in wake of ICE raids.” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2025.
“Farmers brace for impact of Trump’s tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada.” Journal-Courier, March 29, 2025.
“Trump’s push to end FEMA aid leaves red states vulnerable.” Washington Post, April 5, 2025.
“China retaliation on U.S. farm goods hits soybeans, bolstering Brazil.” Reuters, April 4, 2025.
“Farmers struggle as USAID cancels contracts, leaving food aid rotting in warehouses.” Reuters, May 16, 2025.
“Trump vows to phase out FEMA after 2025 hurricane season.” Reuters, June 10, 2025.
“Immigration raids hit farms and food plants as ICE targets agriculture.” Forbes, June 11, 2025.
“St. Louis waits for aid as FEMA response to Missouri disasters is slowest in 15 years.” Missouri Independent, June 4, 2025.
“Trump administration wants to axe all of NOAA’s climate research.” Society of Environmental Journalists, July 2, 2025.
“Congress plans to scrap USDA Climate Hubs, following Trump guidance.” Iowa Capital Dispatch, July 2, 2025.
“Stocks close down heavily again after China matches U.S. tariffs.” The Washington Post, April 3, 2025.
I grew up on a farm in Nebraska. It pains me to see this happening to farmers. Unfortunately the vast majority of them voted for it.
Here's some food for thought. I am retired meteorologist and have noticed a couple of things that are pretty alarming and which, at some point, may dramatically affect the food supply. The first is the appearance of toxic bacteria in more and more freshwater and saltwater locations. The second is more and more listeria working its way into the food supply. What could these two things have in common? The answer, obviously, is warmer temperatures. And, these two instances of bacterial overgrowth are just the tip of the iceberg. Mother Nature is about to wage biological warfare with the human race!!