“Well, it depends.”
That’s been the start of the answer to nearly every question at nearly every farm meeting in 2025.
Whether the topic is farmland values, taxes, estate planning, market outlooks or net farm income forecasts, every speaker qualifies their answer with “it depends.”
It depends on tariffs, it depends on a possible trade war, it depends on prices (which depend on tariffs), it depends on what the Trump administration does next. You can hear the uncertainty in every conversation, every question from the back of the room.
Except for the weather! The long-term weather forecast will not change based on a trade war. Soak that in for a minute; the weather is currently the most predictable part of production agriculture. El Niño, once a peculiar weather phenomenon that uprooted jet streams and created too little rain at the right times or too much rain at the wrong times, is now our old dependable friend. It’s back! At least we’ve got that. I guess.
Agriculture is launching into a period of extreme uncertainty.
No one has any real idea what the Trump administration might do next, nor how it will affect agriculture in general and farm profitability in particular. Still, farmers elected someone who wanted to upend government systems. And now he is.
As of this writing, our editors have observed that the federal government appears to be following some of the Project 2025 agenda. Project 2025 is the presidential transition project developed by a coalition of conservative organizations, whose stated purpose is to “deconstruct the administrative state.”
To be abundantly clear, we don’t know yet that this is the Trump administration’s playbook. No one has said that. Trump disavowed Project 2025 on the campaign trail, but many of his major executive orders have mirrored it. So again, we don’t know whether Trump will instruct new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to follow Project 2025’s agriculture goals.
Still, if you haven’t read the project’s agricultural section, it’s worth your time. You can download it here; scroll to Page 289 for the Department of Agriculture chapter. Here’s a quick look at the agricultural goals outlined in Project 2025:
Adjust USDA mission statement. Remove climate and equity references added by the Biden administration, and narrow focus to agriculture, promoting reduced government intervention, dissemination of ag information and research, and removal of trade barriers.
Restrict Commodity Credit Corporation. Restrict use of CCC for discretionary funding. Ironically, in 2020, then-Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue used this discretionary fund to make $28 billion in Market Facilitation Payments to farmers and ranchers, following the last trade war.
Reform farm subsidies. Repeal Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs, repeal the federal sugar program, prohibit farmers from receiving ARC or PLC payments in the same year they get a crop insurance payout, reduce crop insurance premium subsidy, and increase farm bill transparency in Congress.
Pull SNAP from the farm bill. Separate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the farm bill to require Congress to hold sound policy debates on agriculture and nutrition, and prevent logrolling.
Move nutrition to HHS. Health and Human Services would administer all nutrition programs, instead of USDA, including SNAP, WIC, Food and Nutrition Service, school lunches and more.
Reform SNAP and WIC. Reimplement work requirements, eliminate loopholes and change category eligibility.
Reform school meals. Change eligibility and interpretation for free school lunches and breakfast. Since 2020, if 40% of students in a district are eligible for free meals, all students receive free meals — something many rural school districts qualify for.
Eliminate CRP. Stop paying farmers not to farm land through the Conservation Reserve Program.
Change conservation compliance. Divest more power from the Natural Resources Conservation Service to states and soil and water conservation districts to oversee erodible lands and wetlands.
Reduce checkoff programs. Reject new checkoff program requests, eliminate existing programs, make it easier for farmers to eliminate existing checkoffs and hold votes every five years to determine if a checkoff program continues.
Redirect trade promotion. End support for Market Access Programs that subsidize trade associations, industry and businesses.
This is a lot, and there’s still more. I’d recommend giving it a read for more details. Sure, it’s a 900-page PDF, but the ag section is only about 20 pages. And remember, this is a playbook, not law — at least not yet.
Back home
Readers of Prairie Farmer fall all along the political spectrum, and many likely voted for Trump. That’s meant a wide spectrum of reactions to major decisions like the closure of the Soybean Innovation Lab, which was part of the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Some are certain the sky is falling; others say it didn’t help American farmers, so it needed to go.
NRCS and the Farm Service Agency are already losing people and may lose more. Many of us know someone who just lost their job, likely a probationary employee at an FSA or NRCS office. They’re our neighbors. That makes the cuts feel real.
Other programs that agriculture relies on for funding are in jeopardy, including the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s newly announced I-COVER program for expanding cover crops. It offers up a lot of money for folks who want to venture into cover crops — over $100 an acre, in some cases. But funding is supposed to come from a federal grant.
And right now? That depends, too.
Six months from now, we could be in a trade war with $3 corn and no federal bailout in sight. Or maybe not. What I do know is that this magazine will always be a trusted source of real information for farmers. We’ll keep asking questions and bringing everything we learn back to you, as quickly as we can.
We’re all managing risk right now, even more than ever. But I recently heard a risk manager’s sound suggestion for uncertain times: Focus on the next opportunity.
That’s good advice for farmers — if we can figure out where the next opportunity is.
Comments? Email holly.spangler@farmprogress.com.