How the policies of Trump and Harris could affect farmers

Given how starkly different the worldviews of Trump and Harris are, we know that big changes could be ahead for farms and ranches starting in January 2025. These two major party candidates, Harris and Trump, are so different in all respects that it’s tough to avoid reducing a comparison of any sort down to a zero/sum scenario. If you’re looking for a boil-down it’s this: A second Trump administration would usher in a restructuring of agriculture policy aimed at radical shrinkage. A Harris administration will most likely continue the trend toward using agricultural policy as part of a larger plan designed around renewable energy, minority inclusion, healthcare, and food subsidies for challenged populations. A Harris administration will expand programming, while Trump’s plan will focus on what it sees as removing barriers and regulations that have inhibited agricultural production. Not much has been reported about Harris’ agenda (let alone her views toward U.S. agriculture specifically), and so news outlets from one end of the spectrum to the other are working to get that lined out while looking to her past to predict her future. Harris does have the full-throated support of the United Farm Workers, the nation’s largest agricultural union whose contract agreements include thousands of vegetable, berry, winery, tomato, and dairy workers in California, Oregon, and Washington state. UFW enthusiastically endorsed Harris in July, writing: “President Joseph R. Biden has been the greatest friend the United Farm Workers has had in the Oval Office. The Biden-Harris administration has worked tirelessly on behalf of farm workers, from championing state legislation to strengthen farm workers’ right to join a union, to ensuring undocumented essential workers were eligible for COVID vaccines and relief payments, to working to raise wages and increase legal protections in the exploitative H2A agricultural guest worker system, to proposing the nation’s first ever federal standards to protect farm workers from dying during extreme temperatures,” the organization said. Large agriculture corporations on the other hand might have mixed opinions on this. As a California senator, Harris introduced legislation to increase farm worker protections and co-sponsored the Agricultural Worker Program Act, which would help provide paths to U.S. citizenship for undocumented workers. She was also among those U.S. senators in 2019 who co-sponsored the contentious Green New Deal resolution that supported sweeping change in the agricultural sector where greenhouse gas emissions are concerned. Harris’ campaign has also ruffled the feathers of the agricultural organizations. The Meat Institute, for example, dubbed Harris’ proposal to place a federal ban on price gouging as being misguided and sidestepping “the real causes of inflation.” Elsewhere, the Texas Department of Agriculture has accused Harris of a “land grab” by wanting to snatch up farm- and ranchland to expand existing national parks and refuges. As an attorney general, Harris’ office defended California’s Assembly Bill 1437, which prevented the sale and consumption in that state of eggs coming from hens not kept in enclosures. Her office also appealed a federal judge’s ruling that struck down California’s ban on foi gras due to the forced feeding of ducks. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the arguments her office made give us an idea of the direction in which she leans when it comes to agricultural policy. Most people have, by now, heard that the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation has authored a massive policy initiative, Project 2025, which will likely be the underlying platform of Trump should he retake the White House, complete with a 180-day playbook. Be forewarned, reading through the 919-page document titled,Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise, will take a bit longer than a perusal of the good old Farmer’s Almanac. But whereas the Harris campaign is quite fuzzy about its plans for agriculture, the GOP is offering incredibly detailed initiatives. The bottom line is that the Trump administration would radically alter the present vision statement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from its present being to a much simpler, more conservative model. At present, the Biden administration’s USDA vision statement is: “To serve all Americans by providing effective, innovative, sciencebased public policy leadership in agriculture, food and nutrition, natural resource protection and management, rural development, and related issues with a commitment to delivering equitable and climate smart opportunities that inspire and help America thrive.” Per the Project 2025 missive, a new GOP administration would change that so it aligns with the the idea that: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can and should play a limited role, with much of its focus on removing governmental barriers that hinder food production or otherwise undermine efforts to meet consumer demand. The USDA should recognize what should be self-evident: Agricultural production should first and foremost be focused on efficiently producing safe food.” The mandate would seek to remove issues involving social equity among racial and minority groups, as well as climate change, from the USDA’s programming. As is keeping with most Republican initiatives, the underlying idea is that agriculture is a private sector enterprise, and enterprise flourishes when regulations are limited. Other key points of the Project 2025 as they pertain to agriculture include: To move food and nutrition programs: “All means-tested antipoverty programs should be overseen by one department — specifically HHS, which handles most welfare programs.” This means the Department of Health and Human Services would oversee the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program. To defend American agriculture: “One of the important lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic was how critical it is to remove barriers in the food supply chain — not to increase them.” One goal is to distance U.S. farmers and ranchers from the U.N. and its policies. To address abuses in the $30 billion annual farm-bill programs: “Billions of dollars are being used for programs that Congress never envisioned or intended,” most notably the climate-change policies. To overhaul the farm subsidy program: “The overall goal should be to eliminate subsidy dependence.” One of the key points presented is that many farmers receive few to no subsidies, with most subsidies going to only a handful of commodities representing only 28% of farm receipts. The plan calls for a full repeal of the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program because most of those participants already have access to federal crop insurance. To reform conservation programs: “Farmers should not be paid in such a sweeping way not to farm their land.” Overhauling or eliminating marketing orders and checkoff programs: Changes against this “tax — a means to compel speech — and government-blessed cartels” would shift instead to being handled at a private level if collaboration by both sides is sought.” Storms amid the harvest You don’t have to be a politicswatcher to know this November’s election will be a barn burner. And while agricultural issues might not be explicitly discussed on the campaign trail, but you’ll notice the election hinges on swing state voters, and inevitably those swing states are rural in nature and serve as the nation’s primary agricultural producers. There should be plenty of dust in the air as these two teams race toward the finish line, and all involved expect a few crashes along the way.