Notices by Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)

People think I'm being hyperbolic when I say "Yeah the GOP is just pro-slavery at this point."

If their actual farm labor policy wasn't enough, there's always direct quotes from their own rising leadership.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146

tl;dr Yes prison labor will probably play some role. But the bulk of the US's farm labor by far will probably come from WAY more H2A visas.

Which the Trump admin just lowered wages on! They've also made it a lot easier to do modern day farm slavery on H2A workers & get away with it.

If you've been thinking "How are they gonna run their farms after Trump arrests their workers?"

don't worry, they planned ahead for that 💀

https://youtu.be/zdWrHb8b-c0

Tech-savvy people of Mastodon: I have a need to screengrab episodes of Clarkson's Farm

(I'm doing a "person reviews X show on YouTube" & just need to get short clips)

Clarkson's Farm is available only on Amazon Streaming, which does not allow screens (just gives you a black screen when you try)

....does anyone have recommendations

Totally unrelated! Here's a chart of soybean exports over the same time period.

source: https://unitedsoybean.org/hopper/total-u-s-soy-exports-add-39-8-billion-to-u-s-economy-in-marketing-year-22-23/

ps. If you're worried about how small farmers going bankrupt... most small farmers are millionaires with a 6-figure income. From a day job off the farm. Small farms don't have enough acreage to lose real $$.

It's the bigger farms that will suffer the most. That's why they're hollerin for bailouts. https://youtu.be/mD50nJzDFLA

Farm bankruptcies are back in the news, so it's time to pull this chart out again.

Hey look they kept rising during Trump's first term. Then they went way down under Biden.

Now they're up again? So weird. Thanks Farm Bureau for the graphic

source: https://www.fb.org/market-intel/farm-bankruptcies-down-for-now

Here's a handy video on how millionaires like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are EXACTLY the kind of person farm bailouts are for.

pls pardon the clickbait thumbnail, it does have real math in it

https://youtu.be/3kEr0jb6zhU

important context: the median small farmer in the US is a millionaire with a six-figure income

yes really

had a baffling conversation today

someone came up with a charity to "save family farms." if I understand correctly, it takes nonprofit funding that's supposed to go to food banks & gives it to farmers instead. because "small farmers are getting screwed by the food bank system."

like I get that we want to invest in small farms, but I'm unclear on why "siphon money away from food banks" was the way to do it

she just rebranded supply side economics for hippies?

me, a small farmer: Small farmers in the US aren't peasants who need to be saved. Most of us are middle class at LEAST. Here's the data if you don't believe me

folks from The City(TM): are you sure? have you considered all the Details? this does not fit my worldview & causes me distress. so surely you, Small Farmer, must be mistaken

folks from farm country: haha yeah I know right

And it's just not likely to get better anytime soon.

The first time the US started a trade war with China... what can I say. They noticed. They worked with other countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to buy their crops & invest in growing more of them.

(Sorry guys, these Farm Facts are gonna be a little different than the usual fun little factoids. Because our farm sector is doing its best to light itself on fire right now.)

So which option are US farmers leaning toward?

Let me put it this way: I haven't run across anyone saying "I'm thinking of growing something else" yet.

They're surely out there, but not amongst the chosen spokespeople of the sector.

Anyway, here's what this all means.

US soybean farmers have two options.

Grow something else, or get welfare checks forever.

There is no third option.

A helpful primer on how major soybean buyers like China are viewing the US's new penchant for trade wars.

Really appreciate the writers' commitment to breaking it down so a 5-year-old can understand it

https://asiatimes.com/2025/09/brazil-will-remain-chinas-preferred-soybean-supplier-not-the-us/

Because of this, and Trump's popularity, I knew there were very good odds the farmers in our state would lose their markets.

(NC doesn't export much soy. But we do export lots of pork, chicken, & tobacco to China.)

I saw this coming!

That's not because I'm a genius with a crystal ball either! Everyone who was paying attention saw it coming.

Like China. They spent the last four years investing in soy farming in Brazil, Argentina, etc.

When I ran for office in 2024 (NC Commissioner of Agriculture), I ran on a platform of "We need to stop making our state's farms all about cheap bulk crops for China."

I said it a little nicer than that. But there's a reason that was my platform.

To review: there are only two paths forward for a lot of US farmers.

The "grow something else" option is anathema to a lot of them, that means a whole lot of US farmers are banking on the other path.

Get bailouts forever.