Farmers and ranchers were key constituents for Trump's election in 2025, but according to a recent Farm Journal poll, farmers are having second thoughts caused by rising input costs, trade uncertainty and growing concerns about the future of rural communities. More than half of the farmers surveyed said that federal policies have negatively impacted their operations over the past year. And as input prices, including diesel fuel and fertilizer, continue to climb. One Ohio farmer pointed out that these expenses, and the strain they’re having on his farm, haven’t been this bad since the 1980s, which was one of the worst downturns in agriculture since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
While U.S. and Iranian officials both claim the ceasefire is a win for their nations, no official details of their agreement have been publicly released so far. In a Tuesday social media post, Trump said the deal includes the “complete, immediate and safe” opening of the Strait of Hormuz, but latter, Iranian representatives said that the reopening comes with a caveat, which is, that they plan to charge the ships that go through the strait $2 million, which will be split between Iran and neighboring Oman. Those tolls reportedly will be used to repair war damages in Iran. But observers believe that a two week truce won’t fix the fertilizer crunch that Iran has imposed on most of the rest of the world, and The Farmer & Rancher Policy Sentiment Survey, recently conducted by Farm Journal, highlights surging production expenses as the most critical threat to their operations, with fertilizer and fuel costs being the most burdensome.
In late April, the USDA announced that it will move both technical and administrative staff from the Washington-based Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to either St. Louis or Kansas City, and will close the 6,600 acre Beltsville, Maryland, Agricultural Research Center. This land, which is about 10 miles away from the White House, is probably making developers feel giddy, but observers contend that this move will create even more disruption to USDA’s ability to deliver its hundreds of programs to farmers and billions of dollars in food assistance to the poor and hungry in the U.S.
According to the USDA hay stocks report published May 1s t the quantity of hay in the U.S. is down over 3% from a year ago, but the report showed considerable variation across states. The Texas May stocks were down about 33%, while Oklahoma stocks were up 37.5%. The report also pointed out the need for producers to take inventory of their own hay supplies, because current drought conditions don’t suggest a large hay crop this year. “USDA also released the May World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report last week, and the agency revised its 2026 U.S. beef production forecast to 25.6 billion pounds. That is down 243 million pounds from the April projection, and 456 million pounds below the amount of beef production in 2025, which seems to indicate that beef prices are not going to lose much ground during the rest of this year.
Mark Twain wrote, “Politics is the only profession where you can lie, cheat and steal and still be respected.”
