It seems like we’ve already seen this bad movie. Last week, President Trump imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after talks between the U.S and Canada broke down. Trump’s tariff levies on Canada include alcoholic beverages, stoves, and milk and cheese, steel, pulp, paper, and electronic equipment. So Canada slapped retaliatory tariffs on $19.9 billion worth of U.S. goods, that include dairy products and agricultural equipment. These retaliatory measures match America's targeted 50% tariffs “dollar for dollar,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said.
Diesel prices are surging at the worst possible time for farmers, because fall harvest is near. The national average retail price for diesel just hit $5.61 per gallon, up almost $2.00 from a year ago, and near to an all time high of $5.82 in June of 2022. This spike is caused by the lowest level of supplies since 1982. In order to harvest crops ahead of changing weather, farmers use combines, tractors, grain carts, and transport trucks that run for long, intensive hours daily to get their crops out of fields, and to avoid the inclement fall weather that can damage crops, and even cause farmers to abandon wet fields that can’t support harvest equipment. Diesel fuel stocks are at record lows for this time of year, becauseUkraine has severely damaged Russian oil refineries, disrupting global diesel supplies.
Increased fuel costs are concerning grain farmers this fall because profit margins are thin. For example, the current price for soybeans is $12.87 per bushel, and corn is $5.10 per bushel. Using average yields, for each crop, the net return for soybeans is estimated to be $12.47 per acre, and the corn is estimated to return $43.20. But considering the amount of time farmers spend to prepare the soil, plant and harvest crops, and control weeds, the return per hour for farmers labor is low, since they spend about three hours per acre for soybeans, and 2 hours per acre for corn. So, the return for a farmer’s labor on soybeans is $6.56 per acre, while corn crop returns them 17.28 per hour. From these returns, farmers must make land and equipment loan payments, and hope to have something left over for family living.
Beef cattle producers are reacting with a strong backlash and sense of betrayal toward President Trump’s 90-day plan to import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign ground beef, tariff-free, into the U.S. from some unnamed country. I’ve talked to ranchers about this plan, but I’ll not repeat their responses. Major agricultural organizations—including the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Livestock Marketing Association, and the United States Cattlemen’s Association issued a joint letter warning that flooding the market with cheap foreign beef will devastate our country’s cattle producers. There is also concern it would set a precedent that beef suppliers like Argentina and Brazil might use in the future, and they doubt that the plan would provide long term relief for shoppers, because the lower prices would be short-lived and won’t fix the supply gap caused by historic low U.S. beef cattle numbers due to dry pasture and range conditions throughout the U.S. for several years. They point out that there is no quick fix, because it takes about31 to 33 months, or roughly 2.5 to 2.75 years, from the time a rancher retains a heifer calf to put in their breeding heard, until that heifer's own calf is weaned and ready to be sold as a feeder calf.
Canadian poet Brian Brett wrote, “Farming is a profession of hope.”
