MISSOULA - April 2, 2025, was deemed liberation day by President Trump when he announced sweeping tariffs across the board.
The announcement set off alarm bells for some people, with the future of trade looking into the face of uncertainty. This rings especially true for farmers in Montana as they have been seeing their export markets across the globe dry up.
“The government needs to start doing what is right. And it's not that hard to figure that out,” said Montana Grain Growers Association vice president Steve Scheffels.
Watch to learn more about how tariffs are impacting Montana farmers:
“I think we're going to see a lot of pain out there in the heartland,” said Farmers for Free Trade executive director Brian Kuehl.
Farmers have been struggling to figure out what the future ahead of them looks like since the announcement of across-the-board tariffs this past April.
“I do think America is, if not in, certainly on the verge of a major farm crisis,” said Kuehl.
Kuehl says that from soybeans to wheat, export markets for many crops have dried up with the implementation of tariffs, impacting Montana farmers like Steve Scheffels.
“Spring wheat, the pulse crops, peas, lentils, chickpeas, barley, none of those crops are looking like winners at this point. So it really doesn't look like there's not very many choices anyway that I'm aware of where you can, given the current state, make money next year,” said Scheffels.
Margins for many crops, like wheat, have plummeted this year, as commodity prices have dropped with export markets disappearing. And that hurts small farms especially, as they are already operating on a tight budget.
“Seventy percent of Montana wheat is exported. And so the export market is absolutely huge for Montana wheat farmers. And so the potential risk that we're talking about is high, very high. It's extremely high. So we can't afford even 10% of that market to go away because that would be a huge negative input locally in terms of the costs that we're getting for our wheat locally,” said Scheffels.
“Talking to bankers and credit unions around, there's already a number of people who are defaulting on their operating loans this year. And people are seriously having the conversation around the kitchen table, whether or not they can do it again next year,” Scheffels noted.
With some farmers already falling behind on loans, the potential for small farms to be swallowed up by larger operations becomes a real risk, as seen in the previous trade war in the 2010s.
“It starts at the smallest farm. They have the least wiggle room in terms of money in the bank and ability to live through a few bad years. And so what happens every time we go through a situation like this is the smallest part of the farming community gets cut off and they can't afford to make any money anymore. Their neighbors start farming their land instead. And farms just continue to get bigger and bigger because that's the only way you can manage the risk," Scheffels told MTN.
Both Scheffels and Kuehl say overall that irreparable damage to the nation’s reputation has already been done, and rebuilding overseas relationships will take years.
“For 50 years, America has run an ag trade surplus. That means we sell more than we buy. And the reason is because everybody looked to us as the place to buy products. They knew our products were safe. They knew they could count on them being delivered on time. They knew that we could sell them at a competitive price and they knew the price term and delivery term was not going to change on a whim. All of that's gone out the window now,” said Kuehl.
“Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan — all those economies are very robust and they buy Montana wheat at any price. We have worked with them and educated them on the quality and the reliability of our harvests and the kind of flour that they can produce with our wheat. And they have bought into that," said Scheffels explained. "We just got a commitment from Taiwan to buy 134 million bushels of wheat over three years. And they're buying that wheat in a time where the US is not the low cost producer, not even close. So we have some very, very good markets that we've developed and we cannot afford to screw them up."
The Trump Administration is considering a bailout for farmers impacted by tariffs, although a plan has yet to be announced.
