Farmers in the United States are paying close attention to the ongoing trade war between the United State and China, especially as planting season has begun.
Matt Griggs, owner of Griggs Farms, LLC, is a fifth-generation farmer in Tennessee whose farm dates back to 1882 and raises approximately 1,600 acres of cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat.
China is the biggest importer of American soybeans.
But Griggs has some experience with this situation. He weathered the last trade dispute in 2018 between the two countries during President Donald Trump’s first term and he said he feels more prepared this time around.
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He said that tariffs were just one consideration for him as he planned out this year’s crops, including weather and prices on the other crops. He explained growing a variety of crops helps him minimize risk across the farm.
“We really didn’t adjust our acres much because if we were to go whole hog in other crops, say corn and cotton, and those crops have adverse weather conditions and have a failure, even though the price of soybeans might be down a little bit because of tariffs, they could still be the more profitable crops,” said Griggs.
Griggs said he’s going to be watching and ready to sell when he feels he can get reasonable prices for his soybeans. He said that tariffs like these can be beneficial when they inject market volatility that might raise prices on soybeans.
“Well when it comes to selling our soybeans this year, we’ve already forward contracted some of our planned production and our hope is that with this volatility in the market hopefully at some point, you know, before harvest and then after harvest we’ll have some more pricing opportunities where prices shoot up,” said Griggs.
“It might be briefly but if we can pull the trigger then and get some reasonable prices for our crops, I think we’ll be OK.”
But while he has to roll the dice with his crops, his costs might be going up in other ways due to the tariffs.
“Some of the things that could affect us in 2025 is a lot of our parts that we need to fix our machines and stuff,” said Griggs.
“I would expect the cost on them later on the year to probably rise, especially once we get into harvest. With our combines or cotton pickers, if they break down, they could definitely be more expensive to fix.”
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