I swear to Odin, watching the local beef farmers in my town is like watching a guy set his own shoes on fire and then complain that his feet hurt.
These guys will literally lose the farm that their great-great-grandfather cleared with his bare hands, hand the keys over to a mega-corporation, and then drive off into the sunset in a $90,000 lifted F-250 flying three giant flags, chanting “AMERICA FIRST!!”
Every single economic policy hits them like a freight train—consolidated meatpackers squeezing their margins to pennies, trade war tariffs tanking export prices, input costs going through the roof—and their takeaway is: "We gotta vote Red harder next time."
It’s absolute poetry. They treat political loyalty like a religion. They’re sitting on the porch, watching their legacy slowly vanish into thin air, just praying that the next Big Mac-induced gas cloud floating out of Trumpledickskin carries the same divine authority as the white smoke coming out of the Vatican chimney.
"They're taking away our way of life!" Yeah, bro. You voted for the guy who gave a tax write-off to the giant corporate conglomerate that just bought your pasture for pennies on the dollar. But hey, at least nobody's making the cows eat tofu, right?
I’ve got friends in this exact boat. Chest-thumping, flag-waving, total alpha-male cosplay, right up until the bank foreclosure notice shows up in the mailbox. Boo-freakin-hoo.

Direct quote from the President of the United States. Deal with it, our president says you have too much in life. Need to learn to do with less.

The cumulative cost to taxpayers for golf since he returned to office to be over $110 million.

You should be happy putting your kids to bed hungry while Trump spends more on golf than you will earn in a lifetime.

You need to do with less, the top .05% do not have enough yet.

WINNING WINNING 🏆

You obviously have a tractor and I need someone to mow my lawn. It's about 1/4 acre. I want some landscaping too. You can put in a garden and sprinkler system for me. If you can do any drywall work and roofing, that's a bonus.

Go hang out at home depot, people are always looking for workers. There's lots of work out there for farmers if they'd stop being lazy.

they voted trump and cheered the tariffs and slashing govt spending rooting out waste, fraud and abuse and even cheered the mass deportations.

but 9months later

tariffs: priced and kicked them out of markets due to a trade war, made inputs more expensive like potassium (92% is from canada). they are now stuck with their famous massive oversupply and tanking comodity prices and what are they begging for... FREETRADE, the absolute opposite of what tariffs accomplish and freetrade kept prices stable.

govt spending cuts: another big blow to them... some didn't realize USAID and the federal govt was some cases their biggest buyer feeding starving people. They paid not took, PAID for your crops, if they want to feed the hungry they can do that. It was a win win, you got paid and the govt gets soft power... but now that is gone you aren't sad about not feeding starving kids... you are sad you lost your biggest buyer.

mass deportations: the admins' approach of "if it's brown flush it down" isn't exactly winning. farms are struggling to get workers, americans aren't stepping up (weird huh) and there are more farm bankrupcies happening than last year... who was in charge again?

so why are farmers voting against what helps them?

China agrees to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans this year and more over the next three years. Crisis averted! What a deal — right? Maybe we should keep that CEO at the head of the table forever. I’d even put all my shares on him.

But let’s look at it another way. An arsonist starts a fire, lets it burn for a while, then grabs a hose and saves the garage while the house goes up in flames. The city hands them a big key, the paper runs a front-page story, and everyone buys the T-shirt. A real hero.

American farmers need to realize something: we’re not the top dogs anymore. Other countries have better growing conditions, and they’re adopting new technologies and management strategies faster than we are. They’re going after a bigger piece of the pie — and getting it.

It’s time we learn to diversify again, to adapt, to think beyond one crop or one market. Because depending on politics or “heroic saves” won’t keep our operations alive.

There ya go, American beef producers — according to the guy in charge, you just “don’t understand” how you paying tariffs and raising the cost of beef is hurting the American consumer.

That’s right — not the trade policy, not market manipulation, not weather disasters or logistics issues. Nope. It’s you.

He is the “Citiot of Citiots” you like to complain about.

All of you sitting in that audience — raise your hand if you’d vote for this fool again. He literally just blamed you for high prices and low product availability.

And to the “leadership” that backed the Party responsible for this mess — NCBA, Farm Bureau, NCGA, US Soybean Board — hope y’all are polishing up your résumés, because next election cycle should clean house.

Trumpledickskin has so much DNA on his ass from all that political bootlicking it’s starting to look like a CSI episode.

when an ICE raid guts a majority of your workforce and makes another part too scared to show up it should make you think they are not the problem but YOU are the problem.

it also opens the gate for either just prosecuting and incerating the people who employ them or go along with their workers and empolyers

after all, hiring undocumented people is a crime.

losing their farm isn't enough they need this legal prosecution to really learn

If we want to have all of these environmental and labor laws to protect our people, we cannot just throw our workers right back under the bus by buying cheap goods from nations that use slave, labor and toxic lakes. We are worsening the problems of climate change and human trafficking and slavery by adding long distance shipping to it and hiding it out of sight.

If we ACTUALLY want to help the environment with our Environmental Protection laws, we cannot just have people in foreign nations do even worse practices than our manufacturers here would do. We need to eliminate the problem here.

Think about this: would it be worse for climate change to have a factory burning coal here or to have a factory burning coal in China THEN burning tar-like bunker fuel thousands of miles to come here drop it off then go back?

Is it worse to have our goods cost more because they are made by highly paid and well cared for American workers or to have our goods made by Uyghurs in slavery in central China?

America's entire government budget was once paid by tariffs on imports, wouldn't it be nice to return to no taxes?

Remember when farmers told student borrowers, “You borrowed it, you pay it back”? Funny how quiet it gets when they’re the ones getting the checks. Must be that special kind of socialism that doesn’t feel like socialism.

Anyway—just returning the same advice: You took the loans. You pay them back.

Sincerely, A New/Beginning Farmer

Anyone noticed an uptick in ads from ranchers promoting the idea of buying American beef instead of Argentinian beef? Especially on TikTok?

why do you think that implementing immigration reform will make americans comeback to the jobs they worked in the first place?

in the early 2000's Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma did these with the saftey net that Americans will go work the jobs when... it never happened, they lost millions in unharvested, unprocessed food and immigrant taxes and they sheepishly got rid of them or stopped enforcing them.

other red state has tried this and they failed miserably... Americans won't do those jobs.

instead why don't they ask "what will it take to make them want to go to those jobs?" instead of doing this same thing over and over and hoping for change... insanity.

the term is NACHO

Not a chance hormuz opens.

the m.o of trump. he whispers sweet nothings about negotiations and Hormuz being open (which was open and FREE before all this). oil prices go down, insider trading then... golly, I've been tricked and oil prices goes back up.

Wall Street is sick of it and aren't falling for it again. they're begging for certainty😆. They're sick of these constant pump and dumps... everything was fine for them under biden.

little comfort for farmers that 20% of fertilizer is blocked for 3-4 months, gutted by tariffs and now the new normal for prices, and mass deportations mean what use is growing food if there's no one to harvest it? (also over 10 years these deprtations could lose America half a trillion in taxes)

Here we go again. The USDA just lined up another $13 billion for soybean farmers because of “market dependence” and “poor planning.”

Meanwhile, thousands of us who signed actual contracts under EQIP and CSP — programs built to reward sustainable, long-term management — are still waiting on payments we earned after doing everything right.

Let’s be clear: EQIP and CSP aren’t handouts. They’re contracts. You agree to implement conservation practices, front the cost, maintain them for years, and only then get reimbursed. But when payments are delayed because USDA offices are short-staffed or furloughed, you don’t see us plastered all over ag media complaining.

But when big commodity groups take a market hit (often from their own decisions)? Suddenly, billions appear overnight and the media acts like the world’s ending.

It’s frustrating to see the USDA move heaven and earth for reactive bailouts, while farmers actually improving soil, water, and long-term resilience get ignored.

If we’re serious about sustainable agriculture, maybe we should start rewarding responsibility instead of bailing out dependency.

/End rant.

TLDR: I want to purchase failing, conservative-owned farms for massive discounts at auction. I will then parcel it out and lease it back to the original owners for several times what their upkeep used to run. They made their own bed, and I want to be the person to tuck them in. After all, who would I be as a person if I didn’t give the poor, destitute farmers exactly what they opened themselves up to, ass cheeks spread and eager?

I posted a comment in another chain that got me thinking….

We seem to be headed in a direction where there will be a significant amount of midwestern farms going out of business in the next 1-3 years. These people voted for their situation, so I refuse to shed a tear about it. As a matter of fact, i want to take full advantage of their short-sighted stupidity and bigotry.

Most of the farmers in the Midwest did nothing to earn their properties. Most of it was passed down from their great, great, great (whatever) grandparents who homesteaded the lot in the first place. Their descendents just seem to sell/lease parcels little by little to avoid destitution, because of all things they like to grow, bootstraps aren’t exactly their specialty crops.

We are looking at a situation where these farms will potentially be sold for pennies on the dollar.

The rural US already has proven themselves to be incapable of anything other than god-awful, inefficient business practices. The midwestern United States, at least economically-speaking, after considering the ridiculous amount of subsidies they receive, is essentially what Greece and Italy are to the European economy (in four words: useless, corrupt, unemployed liabilities).

USAID, which bought a solid amount of our soy, has now been dismantled. Goodwill with Asia is gone. This will get worse. Even with the “deal” Trump struck with China to hawk beans for chips, we are still going to be looking at a massive net loss for the year. I believe that this is what the current iteration of our Executive Branch wants.

I have a feeling that between JD’s involvement with Acretrader, as well as Trump being from a multigenerational real estate family, it is in their collective interest for these family farms to fail. Much of this will very well go to auction.

I’m of the mindset where I’d like to give these farmers a taste of their own medicine. Obviously, these farmers need to work the land, as it’s mostly all they know. No reason to stop them. That would be downright unamerican. In the spirit of capitalism, I’d like to lease them back their old plots for around a 200% markup over their old cost of operations.

So here’s the question: What’s stopping me, or anybody else, from scooping up their property at auction and simply leasing parcels back to the former owners for wildly inflated prices?

I hope that this is feasible, and catches enough momentum where we can buy these morons’ livelihoods wholesale, push these people into the streets, and show them what they voted for. Let them beg their dignity back, let them be modern sharecroppers, and pretend you’re throwing them a bone. Again, this is what they voted for.

They want capitalism, and I want to give it to them hard, unlubricated, and just plain nastily. Anybody agree?

I'm not laughing at forced labour but i'm laughing at the reason of him starting his absurd trade war again on the grounds of stopping forced labour.

here in nz he wants to increase it to 12.5% on those grounds... our allies. Even our media say the hard reality you can lessen it but can't stop it sadly.

which is rich since almost half of American farmhands are undocumented. Exploited, overworked, underpayed yet still give Uncle Sam a cut of taxes... other industries with this problem include construction, hospitality and nursing almost any grunt work.

in nz we go actually go after the employers as well and try to clean up our act.

You want to talk forced labour how about the GCC countries that actually do this? Why not tariff their ass.

I have heard stories of gcc countries stealing indian expat passports, how they have to travel in packs of 2-3 people so they have a witness if they exploit you, die on the job or steal your passport.

he won't cause they bribe him but then again this Iran war seems like karma for this.

As farmers go, we American farmers are wimps. So are most Americans.

We’re watching what we love get torn apart — the Whitehouse, the land, the animals, the way of life our grandparents built — and what do we do? We make TikToks. We post rants. I’m guilty of it too.

Our grandparents faced droughts, dust, and war. We’re up against corporations buying up farmland, policies written by people who’ve never set foot on a farm or poured concrete, and a public that thinks food grows at the grocery store.

We scroll. We grumble. Then we go back to work like nothing happened.

When is enough, enough? When do we stop watching and start acting — locally, together, not just online? Who gives a rats ass what your neighbor or family will think? At least right now, we still have freedom of speech.

I don’t have the full answer, but I know it’s not another hashtag.

he said he talked to him and one caviet is to buy soybeans.

but didn't he already agree to buy brazillian and argentinian soy for 10 years already?

so is it a hollow promise to appease him and if so how long till he realises he was duped by him

The furor over “beef vs. beans” seems to have magically disappeared ever since that Big Beautiful Meeting. So I guess everything’s good now, right?

Meanwhile, I’m out here every day, looking over my livestock, trying to guess what the market will look like once the grass is gone. I’m damn proud of how well they’ve come along, especially considering the weather they’ve had to endure to reach market stage.

Still, I can’t ignore the rising expenses — they creep up faster than a thistle patch. So I’m working on new plans to make the farm profitable without relying on a single market or enterprise.

Just wondering how many of us are still out here, trying to adapt, stay afloat, and make it all work.

then abolish the farm subsidies. Save them from bankrupcies, climate disasters and give them safteynets but let them actually think and grow what people want instead of get the subsidy (no insult to the profession, growing food is a demanding physically and mentally)

they are a fan of capitalism and hate socialism then practice what you preach and sink or swim... true capitalism

many farms were under the red cause of their decissions and chasing the subsidies. but its tariffs have made everything more expensive even though they know trade is the answer to their problems but also doesnt realise trade applies to their imports as well.

then the Iran war keeping 1/5 of all oil hence fertilisers trapped and makes things more expensive. the tariffs aren't gone just a new normal for them to suck up now.

these bankrupcies mean this land is likely going to be a datacentre for trumps idiotic ai bubble.

so will America have to import more food cause of this or can Americans magically eat computers now?

I know dear leader claimed we were going to look at bringing some in and it was discussed here. Has that started happening? I tried to search for information but I didn't find much. I guess we import beef from a few countries like Australia and Mexico.

If not will it start happening?

I’ll be straight: a huge reason a lot of us went his way was cost of living. Groceries, gas, the basics. That was a real, legitimate thing to vote on, and I don’t think anyone should feel dumb for it. “I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One” — he said that standing in front of a table of groceries. At rallies it was “they’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast.”

Here’s what I keep getting stuck on. Weeks after the election, before he even took office, TIME asked him point-blank if it’d be a failure if prices didn’t come down. His answer: “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

So which version was true — the “Day One, fast” guy on the trail, or the “it’s very hard” guy once the votes were counted? And a year and a half in, groceries are still up, not down.

I’m not asking you to hate the guy. I voted for him too. I’m asking: if any other politician sold us something that specific and then quietly said “yeah that’s very hard” the second the election was over, what would we call that? Genuinely asking.