Cut-off access to the Chinese market, combined with rising input costs, widened an existing hole in agricultural markets this year.
In an attempt to make up for what it called “unfair market disruptions,” the Trump administration intends to distribute $12 billion to farmers in early 2026.
How much of the hole can $12 billion fill? A chunk, but not enough to safely drive a tractor over it.
Trump’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program will bring welcome relief to many farmers. Farm groups reacted positively to the program, set up to cover row-crop losses from the 2025 harvest.
At the same time, though, farmers underscored how one-time payments need to be a first step toward lasting solutions, a sentiment shared by Minnesota soybean farmers this year as they grappled with high production prices and Trump’s tariff war with China.
Will Minnesota soybean farmers be made whole?
Because Minnesota is a big player in soybean production, and because China is the biggest purchaser of U.S. soybeans, the industry often gets top billing in news coverage.
Unlike news headlines, the bridge program isn’t so soybean-centric. It’s pan-agricultural in nature, reflecting the wide swath of growers who dealt with tight markets this year.
The bailout will cover parts of losses sustained by growers of soybeans and at least 19 other crops. In the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s announcement, the agency mentioned mustard, chickpeas and rapeseed, among other crops that you’d be hard pressed to find in Minnesota fields.
We know $1 billion of the $12 billion will be set aside for sugar and specialty crop producers. An unspecific portion of the remaining $11 billion will go to soybeans growers, a portion of whom are in Minnesota.
Kyle Jore, a soybean and corn farmer in northwest Minnesota near Thief River Falls, said the federal aid will make up for only part of farmer losses.
“The bridge payment will obviously help mitigate that, but it certainly won’t capture a lot of that trade disruption,” said Jore, secretary of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.
Let’s say all $12 billion went to soybean farmers. Under this hypothetical, it wouldn’t equal the $12.64 billion in soybeans that China imported from the U.S. in 2024. This lofty figure demonstrates the size of the market that growers lost access to this year.
Still, the bridge payment is a welcome starting point for farmers. The president of the American Soybean Association, Caleb Ragland, described it as a “positive first step” in reaction to the announcement.
Hard as it is to put a finger on how far the funding will stretch, said grain market economist Ed Usset, it’ll be helpful in the short term.
“Are we trying to make up for a bad price or high production cost?” asked Usset, who works at the Center for Farm Financial Management at the University of Minnesota. “I guess it doesn’t matter. It’ll help fill both.”
A bridge to what?
Relatively low crop prices and high input costs were also realities late in President Joe Biden’s term. Even though each indicator worsened this year under Trump, he has cast the issue as a leftover problem from his predecessor. In a statement, Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, tied the issues to Trump’s economic and trade policies:
“Tariffs have made farming more expensive while shutting local farmers out of their biggest foreign markets. The president’s farm aid package is a far cry from the $40 billion they rushed to Argentina and will not make up for the export market share we have lost. I hear from farmers in my district every day, and they want trade, not aid. These so-called bridge payments are going to lead us in a circle, right back to where we are, next year if the president doesn’t change his policies.”
Where the bridge payments lead to is important, Jore said. If the bridge doesn’t bring farmers to a place of open markets, rising crop prices or lowering input costs, it’s merely a one-use connector.
“The other side of the bridge could look like we start to deal with the excessively high input prices,” Jore said. “A lot of us are making purchasing decisions on fertilizer, seed, those kinds of things. Those decisions need to be made now. As we find out what those prices are we think ‘Oh boy, this is still quite high.’”
The American Soybean Association found the top five input costs in 2024 were:
Opportunity cost of land — 28%
Capital recovery of machinery and equipment — 22%
Seed — 12%
Chemicals — 7%
Fertilizer — 7%
High costs on these and other inputs often make farmers grow crops at a loss. The association projects soybean farmers are netting a $89 loss per planted acre in 2025.
On the commodity side, the American Farm Bureau Federation anticipates farmers will lose $34 billion this year alone due to “historically low prices.”
Trade > Aid
As Craig referenced in her statement, “trade over aid” has been a catchy refrain adopted by farmers this year. Her colleague in Congress, Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, used similar language in a statement:
“As a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer, I’ll be the first to tell you that our farmers don’t want to farm for a check in the mailbox, they want to farm to put food on the table for their families and neighbors. But the reality of a four-year-long ag trade deficit combined with nearly record-high input and production costs make these short-term relief payments necessary to ensure our producers can plan for the next crop year with confidence.”
Craig and Finstad’s statements were responses to a MinnPost request for comment to every member of Minnesota’s U.S. House delegation whose district includes Greater Minnesota. They were asked to respond to whether the bridge payment makes up for soybean farmers not having access to the Chinese market this year. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-7th District, and Rep. Pete Stauber, R-8th District, had not responded by the time this article was published.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, shared statements from three farmers, two in Watertown and one in Dilworth, thanking Trump for the bridge program. Emmer joined them in the praise:
“President Trump continues putting Minnesota and American farmers first. Thanks to the Trump administration, this federal assistance will provide farmers with temporary relief as we wait for the benefits of the Working Families Tax Cut Act to go into effect next year.”
Emmer and Finstad added that work needs to continue on expanding markets, lowering input costs and supporting new trade agreements. This would reduce the need for future ad-hoc payments, Finstad said.
The international trade piece is unavoidable when a country produces more crops than it can use, Usset said.
“And if we get along with people,” he said. “We tend to trade more with each other.”
The post How far can $12 billion for farmers go? Not far enough to offset high input costs, disrupted markets appeared first on MinnPost.
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