A Fifth-Generation Farmer on Trump’s $12B Bailout

0:01Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcast Radio News. Marty Richardson has been a farmer in northwest Missouri for years. So many years, in fact, that when we asked Marty how long it's been, he had to think about it. Oh, let's see. I'm 73. So if I started when I was in high school, whatever that adds up to be 60 years, 55. I live in the house I was born in. And so living on the farm, my generational farm here. so I've been kind of farming my whole life. This is a family business. Marty's sons are also farmers, sixth generation. So they've had a front row seat as agriculture has evolved in recent decades.

0:48Used to be in the hog business, but we got out of that, oh, 20 years ago. And used to be in the tobacco business, and we got out of that. These days, Marty's focus is on cattle and row crops, mostly corn and soybeans. Well, I think the 25 year is we had excellent yields. We had really good corn, really good beans. Of course, the cattle market's at an all-time high. But there's a problem, and it's a big one. A threat to his bottom line and thousands of other farmers. We're just losing our markets, and we've lost that China market. And combined with high input costs for seed, chemical, fertilizer, and fuel, And a farmer can usually stand one or the other.

1:34But when you get squeezed from both ends, it's almost impossible to make any money. This week, the White House stepped in to help farmers facing that two-sided squeeze. On Monday, President Trump announced a highly anticipated multi-billion dollar relief package. We're going to be giving and providing it to the farmers in economic assistance. And we love our farmers. And as you know, the farmers like me. That relief package includes$12 billion in payments, money that U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called a bridge, aid meant to help farmers during a difficult time. Trump has been saying for quite a while that, you know, he's going to help farmers.

2:18He's not going to leave them hurting. Erin Aylworth covers agriculture for Bloomberg. She specializes in the grain markets. And Erin says this relief package comes at the end of what's been a painful year for many U.S. farmers like Marty. It's happening now in large part because farmers have been struggling for a while, right? And that pressure has just been mounting. And farmers are this key voting bloc for the president. They overwhelmingly supported him in the election and for the Republican Party. And so with midterms looming, it's like, do we want to leave one of our biggest voting bases, you know, in pain?

2:58And the answer to that, of course, is no. I'm David Gurra, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, U.S. agriculture at an inflection point, the role farmers are playing in the U.S.-China trade war, and how much of a difference that$12 billion farm bailout is likely to make.

3:21I have a very basic question. That is, at this moment, at the end of 2025, how is the American farmer doing, broadly speaking? They are hurting. I talked to a farmer yesterday, a rice farmer, and she was telling me that she's been on the phone with a lot of other farmers. And those conversations, quite frankly, are tearful. People are worried about their business, about their family farm, essentially about their generations old legacy in a lot of cases, right? They don't want to be the person to have to close the door. And that has created a huge mental toll. And I imagine the threat of bankruptcy as well is a little large for a lot of these farmers.

4:02That's right. Court data shows that Chapter 12 bankruptcies, which are for farms, are on the rise. And they have been for the last two quarters. Erin says there are a number of reasons why many U.S. farmers are in a bind this year. A big one is costs are going up. It's seeds, it's fertilizer, it's equipment, it's everything that you need to put something in the ground, watch it grow, and then harvest it. So those prices are up, commodity prices are down, and then you tack on inflation, right? And everything is just topsy-turvy. Farmers' income is also falling. According to the U.S. Agriculture Department, income from selling key crops, including wheat, corn, and soybeans, has declined since 2022.

4:50And, of course, the United States' ongoing trade war with China, which has put a wedge between row crop farmers like Marty and his biggest customer and put sky-high tariffs on critical inputs like machinery, fertilizer, and seeds. Could you describe the challenges of this trade environment when it comes to farmers, of what the export environment looks like? And we hear a lot about China not fulfilling its obligations when it comes to purchasing soybeans. Can you describe the way that this administration's trade policies have sort of reshaped the environment for soybean farmers in specific? So this actually goes back to Trump's first administration, right?

5:29And a trade war in 2018 and 2019. And that trade war exacerbated a shift that China was already trying to make where they're trying to diversify so that they're not as dependent on the U.S. as a supplier, right? And so they started buying more from Brazil. And U.S. farmers haven't really gotten that market share back. And so now with this administration and the tariff policies again pushing China to other suppliers, American farmers are losing out. They're losing that market share again. And you saw in May, China stopped buying soybeans from the U.S. And that's a huge deal because soybeans are basically the U.S.'s biggest agricultural export, right?

6:27And they go to China. You know, China uses soybeans for – it gets crushed into soybean meal for animal feed, mostly for pigs. and it gets used in soy oil, that kind of thing. So it's a big product. And so to not be moving U.S. supply to them, it's a big gap. It's a big loss of a customer. USDA data showed that between 2020 and 2024, China has committed to buying between 13 and 28 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans each year. In 2025, that number dropped to under half a million. And so they stopped buying in May. And that was to essentially try and gain leverage in these trade talks with the Trump administration.

7:20And I think it largely worked, right? They didn't buy in September when the new marketing year started. And so September, everybody's like waiting for these purchases and they're like, oh, no, like the USDA data that comes out, you just keep seeing zero, zero, zero. For Marty Richardson, the politics behind that business shift were clear. I hate to say it like this, but he's just kind of this country doesn't have a whole lot to trade to other countries except food or agricultural products. So sometimes in the trade deals, we get held hostage to the American farmer because that's the only thing we got to barter with.

8:07Once Trump and Xi talked in late October and, you know, the Trump administration said, OK, China has pledged to buy these 12 million soybeans. That's 12 million tons of soybeans. The market went nuts and you saw a huge jump in soybean prices, which has started to fade now because China hasn't been buying at a fast pace. They have been buying, but they're still buying from Brazil. And so Brazil and South America have become just, you know, an increasingly bigger and bigger competitor. And the economists that I talk to don't think that that's going to swing back to the U.S., especially not immediately.

8:46Neither does Marty Richardson. I mean, what's the odds of China coming back and buying beans like they was three or four years ago? Slim to none. Because they've got that Brazil down there. They're raising huge crops. And I can't see fuel going down much, fertilizer going down much, or seed going down much, or John Deere going down. I mean, that's called inflation. When everything goes up, very few things go back down. and corn and beans and wheat and rice and cotton have not had that inflationary jump that the rest of everything else has had. You're just not going to see those main four or five things that we buy to raise a crop, you're not going to see those retreat much.

9:39The relief package Trump announced on Monday is designed to offset some of that lost business in the form of one-time payments. which will be parceled out to growers of certain row crops, including soybeans, wheat and sorghum, and to growers of specialty crops like sugar. In a press release, the administration said those payments are intended to help farmers weather temporary trade market disruptions and increase production costs, which it says stem from Biden administration policies. It's aimed to help them stay afloat until investments from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act go into effect in late 2026.

10:12Erin says the administration has yet to release key details of how the aid is going to be distributed. For instance, what kind of relief is each crop going to qualify for? That's the biggie. That's really what's going to tell you who's getting the most help and who's not. And so until we have that number, we're, you know, a little bit in the dark. We know it's coming. The administration has said that they expect to deliver all of the aid by the end of February or before. So we will see. But we are still waiting for a lot of those key details. There will be folks listening to this who are wondering why farmers are getting this relief package.

10:52Of all the constituents across this country who have been changing behavior, the way they work, the way their businesses operate because of these trade policies, why are farmers being singled out? What's your answer to that question? I mean, one, they're such a huge, huge voter block. It's a political reason. Yes, it is a political reason. They are huge supporters of this administration and a key voting base for Republicans. So I think that's a big piece of it. Another piece of it is, you know, the ag industry is huge and soybeans are the biggest U.S. agricultural export, right? I mean, it's big business.

11:37So I think those two things, politics and business, power and money.

11:50Coming up after the break, the politics of U.S. agriculture, now and historically. And what's at stake for the industry if current trends aren't reversed?

12:08The trade war between the U.S. and China has posed a significant challenge for U.S. soybean farmers. But American agriculture has also been impacted by changes the Trump administration has made to the federal government itself and what it prioritizes. Bloomberg agriculture reporter Aaron Aylworth says the country's farming industry and its politics have long been intertwined. Agriculture for the U.S. is a huge source of power and leverage. We've historically had this thing called breadbasket diplomacy, where we have been able to send our surpluses to other countries, either as aid or we have withheld it as punishment, depending on whether you're an ally or an enemy, right?

12:56And that has been hugely politically helpful for a long time. That has been fading away. And that's what I think we are watching a piece of right now is that kind of shift where we may have been the top exporter of corn, soybean, and wheat for decades, but are we today? Not so much. You know, we've fallen down in those ranks a little bit. And that's what we're watching in real time now. I mean, every day I start my morning going, is there a flash sale of soybeans to China? Or did they buy from Brazil and Argentina again? And that's exactly what the traders that I'm talking to are watching too.

13:43Who's buying what and where are they buying from, especially if it's not the U.S.? I want to stick with this because you're kind of indicating that U.S. agriculture played this role in buffeting or enhancing the U.S.'s ability to project soft power around the world. I mean, I think that we tend to focus on the business side of this, the commercial relationship. But how big a deal was that when you look at the agriculture industry broadly, the way that it kind of dovetailed with or complemented kind of larger diplomatic or geopolitical ambitions the U.S. had? Well, I mean, you look at what we did with our European allies in fighting Germany, right?

14:18And at one point, getting them food supplies, agricultural supplies was just as important as getting them weapons. I think that's a big example. These days, you know, the U.S. has been known for sending so much food aid around the world through the U.N. and other programs. You know, is that changing with this new administration and these policies? Yes. Right. So I think that's in part how China was able to weaponize soybeans, if you will, because they know that it's a big business and a big part of our, I think, global identity to be this food supplier. And so by taking that business away and shifting it elsewhere, they had the ability to say, we're not just going to swallow this tariff or this policy that you're trying to force on us, U.S.

15:14I think there's the old line that farmers have to be optimists by nature, given all of the difficulties they face. Which makes me wonder, when you look at the agriculture environment today, what is giving them reasons to be hopeful about the industry? Yeah, they are hopeful for new markets, right? I mean, I talk to farmers almost every day at this point, and they're saying like, listen, the tariffs are hurting us, but at least somebody is negotiating. They have felt like they haven't had the best deal in the past, that they weren't necessarily getting the fair prices that their crops should. And so now they see somebody at least trying to open conversations and get at new markets.

16:01Now, is that working? You know, depends on who you ask. The administration has touted a number of deals that have come through, but some market watchers will point out how many of those actually have a written signed deal behind it. That's one of the key things that we're waiting for with China is everyone's like, okay, we have a pledge, a commitment. Where's the signed piece of paper that lays out exactly what the commitment is and what the rules are, basically? And until we have that, do we actually have a deal? Big question. What's at stake for the U.S. if the agriculture industry succeeds or fails?

16:44So it's under all of these constraints. It's a very difficult period. How should we think about its importance broadly to the health of this country, to the U.S.? You know, before I started this beat, I didn't realize just how many things agricultural products are in, right? It's not just the food we eat. It's some of the stuff that's in your gasoline at the gas station. It could eventually be used to fly your airplanes, right? It's going into your dog food. It's feeding the cattle. It's this massive business ecosystem. And if that fails, if that big of an industry fails in the U.S., I think we've got a real problem.

17:32Marty Richardson in Missouri isn't optimistic that farmers like him will ever see Chinese soybean purchases return to where they were before the trade war. Or that the Trump administration's farm bailout will make much of a difference for farmers. This bridge that they're giving us or this handout, some people call it, or welfare, some people call it, it's really not even a band-aid. Let me use this analogy. You're short$200 in your bank account, and I give you$30. Yeah, that's going to help, but not really. And I'm not saying he should have given us everything we lost. Don't get me wrong there, but I can't see it's going to do anything.

18:15He told our producer, David Fox, that finding new markets, both foreign and domestic, is critical for the next generation of U.S. farmers. But for the moment, he says, it looks like there's a long road to hoe. I got a grandson, and the way the world is now, I'd love to see him farm, but he's only 10. So in 10 years, it's no different. I might tell him maybe he needs to do something different. he's going to be in the NBA, he told me, so I doubt it. Well, at least he's got a backup plan. There you go. There you go.

18:54This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gurra. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. If you liked this episode, make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.