Farmers sound alarm as worsening crisis threatens entire industry: 'We're in a very dire situation'
Mike Taylor
Mon, September 22, 2025
The Trump administration's trade war has negatively impacted the agriculture industry, and soybean farmers are asking for a resolution.
What's happening?"We're in a very dire situation," Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, said, according to Fortune.
In April, he told CNN that China had cut its imports of U.S. soybeans to zero. The country previously accounted for 25% of production, but it has turned to Brazil in the face of tariffs and other taxes, per Fortune.
"This trade war is very concerning to us right now," Ragland said, citing declining prices for soybeans and other crops, rising production costs, and high interest rates. "It's going to result in lower prices, and, quite frankly, there's not much room for error right now in the budgets."
The ASA sent a letter to President Donald Trump in August, saying soybean farmers were on "a trade and financial precipice." Ragland stated that the longer the situation continues, "the worse the impacts will be."
Why is this important?Fortune reported that this year's soybean harvest was expected to be the United States' sixth-largest. But prices are down 40% over three years, and production costs are almost $1 per bushel higher than futures prices.
The magazine pointed out that agriculture makes up nearly one-fifth of the nation's economic output, accounting for $9.5 trillion and over one million jobs.
"There's 500,000 farmers that raise soybeans in the United States, and we're all in the same boat," Ragland told CNN. "We desperately need to get something rectified quickly with China … and we want to encourage the administration to get a proactive trade deal done."
"We want to keep this nation strong. We're the backbone of America," Ragland added.
What's being done about soybean farmers' plight?Ragland concluded the letter to the president by stating, "We need your help." On CNN, he said he'd like to see a pivot from what he called barrier-building tariffs to "a Phase 2-type deal" to support rural communities and their small businesses, as well as the infrastructure of these areas.
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