Minnesota farmers weigh Harris and Trump on ag policy as candidates compete for rural votes

Gov. Tim Walz was picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate for many reasons — among them his rural roots, which Democrats hope will help erase a deficit the party has in farm country.

That may or may not occur. The nation’s farmers, many hurt by floods or drought this year, as well as falling prices for their commodities, have steadily leaned toward the Republican Party. An April poll by the Rural Democracy Initiative showed that 46% of rural respondents said they were Republicans, 29% identified as independents and only 25% claimed they were Democrats.

That trend holds in Minnesota, where Greater Minnesota is becoming “redder” while the Twin Cities and other cities in the state are turning more “blue.”

But, especially since all seven swing states have sizable farm economies, the Harris-Walz ticket and the Trump-Vance campaign are both battling for the farm vote.

For Democrats, chipping away at Republicans’ margins of victory in rural areas is critical and for Republicans, holding their advantage there is, too.

Yet presidents have limited authority over agriculture policy. The bulk of farm policy is made by Congress, mainly through a massive five-year farm bill, so a president has only a limited role when it comes to agriculture.

And agriculture issues are not always at the top of a presidential candidate’s agenda, where other issues like the economy, immigration and abortion dominate.  

“Agriculture is always ignored. And I’ve never seen agriculture ever become an issue in any election,” said Kathy Zeman, who owns Simple Harvest Farm in Rice County and says she supports the Harris-Walz ticket.  

Noreen Thomas of Doubting Thomas Farm in Moorhead, however, said she doesn’t feel completely slighted. “I think for one of the first times we’re hearing more about agriculture,” she said.

Thomas, who grows barley, rye and other grains, said she is undecided about which ticket to back in November. She also said the campaign promises from Harris and Trump are “just chatter” right now.

While it might not be a top issue in the presidential race, both Harris and Trump have made promises to the nation’s farmers.

The politically powerful American Farm Bureau Federation has surveyed presidential candidates for 40 years and did so again recently.

Harris responded to the farm bureau survey in a letter that said her administration would “crack down on unfair mergers and acquisitions involving big food corporations” to slow the disappearance of smaller, family run operations and “help create a level playing field for competition in which all farmers and ranchers thrive.”

“Under Trump’s agenda, farms and ranches were told the only path to success was to get big or get out,” Harris said.

Trump, meanwhile, told the farm bureau he is “proud to be the most pro-Farmer president ever,” and vowed to cut energy prices.

“I commit to lowering your energy bills by half in the first year,” Trump said, vowing to end the Biden administration’s “net zero” policies aimed at cutting carbon and methane emissions.

While higher energy prices can increase production costs for farmers, they could potentially generate revenue and profit for producers through carbon credits and increased demand for corn used to produce renewable diesel.  

Walz ‘gets it’ 

Trump promised to strengthen federal farm safety net policies, which include subsidies and crop insurance. These issues are already under discussion as Congress debates a new farm bill and Democrats support expanding these programs, too.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is promoting Walz’s rural roots and his work in Congress as a member of the House Agriculture Committee, where he sponsored legislation that expanded veterans’ access to crop insurance, farm education and job training.

That approach has worked with Zeman, who owns a pastured livestock farm and benefits from an expansion of the food stamp program called “market bucks” that allows recipients to buy food at farmers markets.

“Governor Walz gets it,” she said. “He understands what small towns are. He has rural values. He has been at farmers markets. He has fought the battle with us to try to get market bucks funded.” 

Trump promised to extend his tax cuts, which will expire next year and which Democrats say favor the wealthy and huge agribusinesses. Harris said she would end those tax cuts in favor of a new code that benefits the middle class and smaller farms and ranches.

‘Scary’ Trump tariffs

One thing Trump failed to mention in his response to the farm bureau survey is a major initiative that would impact American farmers — raising tariffs on all imported products to 20% and on those from China to 60%.

He’s also threatened Illinois-based John Deere with 100% tariffs if it moves its factories overseas. Trump is so supportive of tariffs that he’s given himself a new moniker — “Tariff Man.”

Tariffs are an import tax that would raise a lot of money for Trump initiatives if he’s elected president. But most economists say tariffs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. And other nations are likely to retaliate with higher tariffs on U.S. products, especially agricultural products.

When Trump implemented a series of much more modest tariffs in 2017, American farmers lost access to import markets in China, which represented the second largest market for U.S. agriculture exports. Soybean farmers, for instance, lost 75% of their export market to China, which turned to Brazil to buy soybeans.

The American Farm Bureau Federation had urged Trump to drop his plans for tariffs and instead engage in trade talks to settle disputes. But Trump ignored that advice. Then, to regain support from the nation’s farmers, Trump approved $26 billion in taxpayer aid to those hurt by his tariffs.

Dana Allen-Tully, past president and chairman of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, said the No. 1 issue in farm country is trade.

“In (the Biden) administration, there hasn’t been a strong trade agenda,” she said.

While Trump successfully renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement and made other bilateral trade deals that favored farmers, she said his talk of new tariffs “is scary because agriculture always takes the brunt of retaliation.” For this reason, support for Trump, which is strong in farm country, is “a double-edge sword.”  

A diversified dairy and crop farmer in Eyota, Allen-Tully also said the use of year-round ethanol known as E15 is another priority — which both Harris and Trump support — as well as expanded use of E15 in aviation.

Concerns about climate change

Farmers are increasingly concerned about the dangers of climate change and Harris may have an advantage among these agricultural producers.

Walz pressed this point during his debate with Sen. JD Vance Tuesday on the issue of climate change. Vance did not say he believed carbon emissions are heating the planet.

“My farmers know climate change is real,” Walz said. “They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods, back to back. But what they’re doing is adapting, and this has allowed them to tell me, ‘Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean, and I harvest wind.’” 

Thomas, of Doubting Thomas Farm, is undecided about whether she’ll vote for Harris or Trump. But she said a candidate that supports sustainable farming and environmental policies could win her favor.

“Aligning with helping sustainable farming and helping with soil health, environmental-type things, would make a difference to me,” she said.

Last November, President Biden, accompanied by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Walz, visited Northfield to tout $20 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act that is aimed at helping farmers and ranchers tackle the climate crisis.

The bill rewards producers who practice what the president calls “climate smart agriculture” and nutrient management, as well as plant cover crops, practice prescribed grazing and store carbon in the soil to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Harris said she would continue the initiative.

Trump, meanwhile, has strongly condemned the Inflation Reduction Act. He said, however, that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement he marshaled through Congress “guarantees the strongest environmental protections of any trade agreement in history.”

Harris may have trouble with farmers over another environmental initiative.

It concerns the expansion of a law called the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) that aims to keep navigable waters free of pollutants, but has been expanded to include wetlands and even regulates land that occasionally gets wet. Farming and ranching is off limits on that protected land.

Trump told the farm bureau he would rollback these Environmental Protection agency regulations required by WOTUS.

“While in office, I repealed President Obama’s ridiculous Waters of the United States rule, an outrageous federal power grab over your private land,” his response to the farm bureau said. “I ended the federal intrusion into our Family Farms and our Ranches. No longer should federal bureaucrats tell you how to run your business. The EPA shall never micromanage your land.”

As the candidates continue to campaign in rural America, there are likely to be other appeals to the nation’s farmers, who are already anxious by Congress’s failure to approve a new farm bill.“The farm community is somewhat stressed,” Thomas said.

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