Seeing how we all managed to survive another trip around the sun, it’s time again for this columnist to predict which agricultural stories will make news in 2025. I’ve grabbed some of my most reliable aids, including a handful of bone oracles made out of cattle shoulder blades, my grandmother’s tea cup, a scrying ball, and five free range chicken and a bag of seeds (just keeping it ag) to guarantee crystal clear clairvoyance. Here we go.
The farm economy
What do the U.S. farm economy and a John Deere tractor with engine issues have in common? Neither are going anywhere without serious attention. Virtually all parts of the U.S. agricultural complex — including farmers, Big Ag, Big Meat and food manufacturers — found 2024 challenging. The eternally optimistic will call it an economic cycle downturn. But you could call it a recession and you wouldn’t be wrong.
And the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t offer much of an optimistic outlook for 2025. The U.S. agricultural trade deficit is set to hit a record $45.5 billion this year. The USDA predicts low commodity prices will continue to depress profit opportunities for farmers. That’s roughly 43% over last fiscal year’s projected $30.7 billion shortfall. Exports to nearly all major trading partners are predicted to remain flat or decline. U.S. ag exports in 2025 are forecast at $170 billion, down $4 billion from 2024. U.S. ag imports are projected at $215.5 billion, up $9.3 billion from last year. That’s not a recipe for a turnaround.
I often look at what business decisions farmers make in judging the overall health of the agricultural industry.
Catching my attention last November was news that cash-strapped farmers are opting in large numbers to give a hard pass to traditional pesticides, including Bayer’s Roundup, in favor of more wallter-friendly generic fungicides and pesticides for the 2025 growing season. Illinois producer Jeff O’Connor put it succinctly: “It’s like if you grew up eating Fruity Pebbles and now you go to Dollar General and get Fruity Bites.”
Some farmers may get help in 2025 from a bruising fight on Capitol Hill last month that resulted in an 11th-hour $10 billion economic relief package before lawmakers closed shop. But the devil is in the details. How much will go to individual farmers as opposed to Big Ag business interests?
Speaking of Big Ag, economic forecasts are also gloomy for 2025. For example Bayer — facing slowing farmer purchases of agricultural imports and regulatory pressures on dicamba, lowered this year’s earning outlook.
But all of that is no more than a snapshot of where U.S. ag is at the moment. The biggest issue is the industry has absolutely no idea of where it’s headed this year. The ag economy is still limping along with an antiquated farm bill passed in 2018. The nation should have gotten a new bill in 2023, but ineptitude in Congress — and both political parties share blame — have contributed to uncertainty and the current economic malaise. More on that in a bit.
Climate change policy
President-elect Donald Trump — who once took a sharpie to forecast a hurricane — had this to say about climate change just days before the November election:
“We don’t have a global warming problem… Do you remember how this whole hoax started?”
She came down and she started screaming at senators that have been there for 30 years. … And we’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars on things that, you know, putting windmills all over these magnificent plains and fields and valleys and oceans. And then they had one whale in, I think, 50 years come up. And then last year they had like 18 of them, wash ashore, die. And it’s all a big hoax.”
The “she” in question is New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called on her fellow lawmakers to strike a “Green New Deal” in a 2019 House Resolution.
All of which to say, Trump will make life tough for those who are concerned about the impacts of carbon dioxide and methane pollution on Earth’s atmosphere.
Bank on Trump signing a fistful of executive actions intended to radically change America’s current approach to the environment, energy and climate. Expect Trump to withdraw the U.S. — as he did in his first term — from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump could go further by reneging on U.S. promises to reduce methane emissions. And Trump could attempt to withdraw the U.S. from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — the founding treaty of United Nations climate talks approved by the U.S. Senate.
Trump also is very likely to repeal the electric-vehicle tax credit.
Also expect pointed efforts to reverse a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would require publicly-traded companies to be transparent about how climate change affects their businesses.
Scientists are trying to estimate the impact the second Trump administration’s climate policy might have on the long-term outlook of global warming. Climate Action Tracker suggests a complete rollback of current policy “could further add a 0.04˚C of warming by 2100 to our current policy estimate of 2.7°C.”
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza
USDA confirmed the first-ever case of H5N1 infection of a dairy cow on a farm in Texas last March. Less than a week later on April 1, tests confirmed the first reported human case of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S.
Since then, H5N1 bird flu has marched across the U.S. Last month, the Center for Disease Control reported the first severe human case of bird flu.
As of late last December, CDC reports that 875 U.S. dairy herds have been infected with H5N1 bird flu as well as 65 people in nine states. There are likely significant under counts due to a lack of testing.
Also last month, California Gov. Gavin Newson signed an emergency proclamation on the spread of H5N1 bird flu.
Thus far, there haven’t been any known cases of human-to-human contamination, which could potentially set off a pandemic. But the National Institutes of Health notes the current strain of H5N1 with just a single glutamine to leucine mutation would make human-to-human infection possible.
Federal and state agricultural agencies were relatively slow in responding to the H5N1 risk last spring. Now they’re playing catch up. In addition to last April’s federal order, requiring mandatory testing of lactating dairy cows prior to shipping across state lines, last month USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a second federal order requiring national milk testing and other reporting requirements.
A new study in Nature suggests there are likely multiple pathways for the spread of H5N1 virus.
Federal officials have thus far essentially placated the public with assurances the virus can be curbed by taking precautions. All true — unless it mutates and then it’s kitty bar the door.
The Farm Bill
Last month, Congress simultaneously avoided a governmental shutdown by mere minutes and passed yet another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill through the end of September. The nation’s agricultural industry was supposed to get a new farm bill back in 2023, but partisan infighting has prevented a deal getting done.
Now it’s up to a new cast of politicians including:
- Rep. Glenn Thompson, incoming House Agriculture Committee chair;
- Rep. Angie Craig, House ag committee ranking member;
- Sen. John Boozman, who moves from ranking member to chairman on the Senate ag committee
- and Sen. Amy Kobuchar who replaces retired Sen. Debbie Stabanow to serve as ranking member.
In the current political climate, getting a bill to the president’s desk will be a tall order. Not only does the GOP have razor thin majorities in the House and Senate, but there are deep partisan divides over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and climate change funding. I wouldn’t be surprised if Farm Bill negotiations drag on into the fall, despite Thompson’s wishes to move quickly.
I’ve got to wonder if Thompson and the rest of the ag committee will be able to keep the GOP wolves from raiding SNAP, conservation programs and whatever dollars remain in the Inflation Reduction Act to help enact Trump’s promise for new tax cuts.
Kicking the Farm Bill down the road again in September would amount to maleficence.
The ‘Ag-disrupter-in Chief’
Trump spent an inordinate amount of time on two issues during his first presidency — tariffs and immigration, both of which had major negative consequences for U.S. agriculture.
Tariffs
Not much good came out of the Trump tariff trade war. USDA’s Economic Research Service reports:
“From mid-2018 to the end of 2019, this study estimates that retaliatory tariffs caused a reduction of more than $27 billion (or annualized losses of $13.2 billion) in U.S. agricultural exports, with the largest decline in export losses occurring for exports to China. At the commodity level, soybeans accounted for the predominant share of total trade loss, making up nearly 71 percent ($9.4 billion of annualized losses) of the total, followed by sorghum (over 6 percent or $854 million in annualized losses), and pork (nearly 5 percent or $646 million in annualized losses). At the State level, losses were largely concentrated in the Midwest with Iowa ($1.46 billion in annualized losses), Illinois ($1.41 billion in annualized losses), and Kansas ($955 million in annualized losses), accounting for approximately 11, 11, and 7 percent, respectively, of the total losses.”
Things got so bad that Trump gave farmers a series of government handouts. If you include dollars given to farmers for market disruptions during the COVID pandemic, more than 40% of farm incomes in 2019 and 2020 came from federal assistance.
The tariff war with China only ended when Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed a “phase one” trade deal promising to buy $80 billion of U.S. agricultural products over two years. But anyone knowing a little something about agricultural markets knew Trump was getting played. The deal failed spectacularly.
But now Trump promises more of the same — on steroids.
Immigration
Shortly after Trump won the presidency in 2016 it became clear that White House policy to expel undocumented immigrants could have massive consequences on U.S. agriculture.
And Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on farms occasionally made the news – in California, New York, and Minnesota, to name a few. No one knows for sure exactly how many undocumented ag workers ICE rounded up during Trump’s time in the White House. But just the threat put the agricultural industry on edge.
It would take a massive targeted immigration operation to really undermine the U.S. farm economy, including thousands of additional ICE officers and a beefed up judicial system to handle the caseload.
Trump has suggested the use of the U.S. military and local law officials, though both choices likely would face court challenges. The financial costs of massive roundups are likely prohibitive.
Already some in the U.S. agricultural industry are pleading for waivers to protect undocumented farm workers. The fight over deportation is just getting started.
I expect these five top issues will make agricultural headlines in 2025. And it’s hard to see a silver lining.
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