I'm a Soybean Farmer Who Voted for Trump. I'm Begging the President to End the Trade War.

[In It to Win It]

My family has been farmers for nine generations, going back to 1808 when my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather cut down trees to build a cabin and barns for livestock, and planted the food they needed to survive.

I can see their gravestones from my home here in Magnolia, Kentucky. My father and grandfather taught me to farm and now I’m paying it forward to my three sons, ages 14, 12, and 9.

In the 1980s, farmers in my area shifted from dairy and tobacco to soybeans as new technology changed the market and made it possible to farm rougher terrain and use pesticides to kill weeds without killing crops. But now, because of the trade war with China, I’m worried we could be out of business by 2027. All that history, heritage, blood, sweat, and toil could vanish with the stroke of a pen.

Soybeans are one of the most versatile crops in the world. They have thousands of uses: They can feed cattle, be turned into biofuel and rubber, and be mined for the seed oils that are used throughout the food industry. Last year, soybeans were the number one row crop in my home state of Kentucky. But as I’m planting seeds this spring, I’m facing fear and uncertainty about who will buy my crops come harvest time in October.

The U.S. became the leader in soybean production about 30 years ago. That’s when China started buying our soybeans as it went through its own industrial transformation, making its people wealthier. With more money to spend, the demand for meat exploded—and so did the need to feed soybeans to poultry, cattle, and pigs in China. To this day, they still use 70 percent of their soybean imports to feed livestock.

https://www.thefp.com/p/im-a-soybean-farmer-who-voted-for