Midwest
Farmers 'brutalized' as costs 'go through the roof' in last days of Biden's America
American agriculture appears to be wilting in the heat of inflation and the drought of sound economic policy under the Biden-Harris administration, some farmers told Fox News Digital in recent interviews.
“Within the agriculture sector, we’re in a recession right now,” Brent Johnson, a farmer and president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, said over the weekend.
“We’ve seen a lot of job losses. We’re seeing negative balance sheets. It’s become very challenging.”
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Soaring costs are crippling farmers while the international market for American-grown food has slowed to a crawl “with no new trade deals” under the current administration, said Johnson.
“It doesn’t take somebody with a PhD to figure out that the math isn’t working and that we’ve got to do something to offset what’s been going on,” John Boyd, a Virginia farmer and founder of the National Black Farmers Association in Virginia, said in a phone interview.
John Wesley Boyd Jr. at his farm in Baskerville, Virginia. Boyd is president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association. “We’ve got to do something to offset what’s been going on,” he said. (Matt McClain for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“We’re paying $5 a gallon for diesel and it was probably somewhere around $2 a gallon five years ago,” he said.
“All of these costs have gone through the roof, all the input costs — but the prices for corn and soybeans are down.”
Fertilizer, seed, feed, diesel and labor costs, said Boyd, have doubled since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office in Jan. 2021.
The economics “make it very difficult to stay alive.”
Harris now tops the Democratic ticket, with running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in the race to control the White House against Republican challenger and former President Donald Trump plus Sen. JD Vance — and Trump has said on the campaign trail he will cancel every Biden administration policy that he described as “brutalizing our farmers” within hours of taking office if elected in November.
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Boyd added that the economics “make it very difficult to stay alive. And then you have an administration that hasn’t been aggressive in helping us.”
Boyd himself was instrumental in getting the administration to release $2 billion in direct assistance to Black and other minority owners from groups that suffered discrimination over the years in federal farm programs.
Trump has said on the campaign trail he will cancel every Biden administration policy that he described as “brutalizing our farmers” within hours of taking office if he’s elected in November. (iStock)
“Today’s action will enable more farmers and ranchers to support themselves and their families, help grow the economy and pursue their dreams,” the White House said in a July 31 statement about its most high-profile effort to aid farm owners.
Even so, said Boyd, “we’re struggling — and we’ve been losing farmers across the country, too.”
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About 6,000 farms closed in 2023 alone, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though it is part of a larger trend dating back decades.
The troubles today, however, run deeper than just the basics of a business balance sheet.
Aging population of farmers
“You know that when farms go out of business,” said Boyd, “there are not a lot of young people replacing those numbers.”
An aging population of farmers is just one of the major issues that drove the recent formation of the Nebraska Farmers Network.
A farmer uses a barn to show support for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on August 10, 2024, near Charles City, Iowa. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“A whole generation of Nebraska farmers and ranchers have a median age of 56.9 years old, and the average age of a Nebraska landowner is 67 years old,” the group states on its website.
The pool of farmers dwindled decades ago when young adults, now in middle age, saw college as a better opportunity than working in the family agriculture business.
“It doesn’t take somebody with a PhD to figure out that the math isn’t working.”
“We skipped a whole generation of farmers,” Nebraska Farmers Network co-founder Gabe Sanchez told Fox News Digital.
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Younger adults now believe that a college education isn’t worth the investment.
“There are now plenty of young people willing to do the work,” Sanchez said. “What they’ve lost is the land to farm.”
The Nebraska Farmers Network began operation last year as a grassroots movement to battle other major issues fueling the farm crisis. Its members argue those are the failures of big government and the greed, and potential threat, of global investment.
A consortium of interests, including foreign nations such as China, Saudi Arabia and even Canada, plus uber-wealthy investors like Bill Gates, have gobbled up millions of acres of farmland around the country, said Sanchez.
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“They just see land as an investment and not for its production value,” he said.
Those non-agricultural investments in the world’s most productive soil lead to higher taxes, which make it even tougher to turn a profit and are pricing farmland out of the reach of, well, farmers.
“Farmers already operate on a slim margin and that margin is slipping away,” said Sanchez.
A tractor with combine on farm field and chimney rock, Scotts Bluff National Monument, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. (Hawk Buckman/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Negligent government, he said, is a big part of the problem.
“These outside entities are skirting vague and loosely enforced federal and state laws prohibiting foreign investment,” said Sanchez.
“And nobody’s doing anything about it.”
Farming’s future
The widespread crisis in farming is causing a historically heavy Democratic voting bloc to consider another option, said Boyd of the National Black Farmers Association.
“My demographic group has historically voted all Democrat,” said Boyd. “Maybe 90% or more Democrat.”
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He added, “But I don’t know if it’s going to be that way going forward. The Trump campaign has a chance to make a play here and I think they need to do it more aggressively.”
He said he’s hoping to hear plans for farming’s future from both campaigns.
“We’re all facing trouble.”
Sanchez said Nebraska farmers are solidly voting for Trump.
He fears all the foreign investment might be about more than just a desire to make money in real estate and demands a more aggressive defense of American farmers and farmland should Trump win back the Oval Office.
“Henry Kissinger once said that if you control the food, you control the people,” said Sanchez.
Boyd said whoever’s in office needs to do right by American farmers.
“We’re the greatest country in the world, man, and that country was built off the backs of farmers,” he said.
“The whole infrastructure of this country was built off farmers. And we’re all facing trouble. The numbers right now just aren’t adding up.”
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Brewers have a chance to win their second series in a row and their first of July this evening in Arizona as they get set to take the season series against the Diamondbacks.
After a late night yesterday with over eight innings thrown by the Brewers bullpen, they’ll lean on Brandon Woodruff to provide them with rest. Woodruff will be making his third start on the mound since returning from the injured list and his ninth overall on the season. Since returning, Woodruff has thrown 11 2/3 innings, giving up just two hits, no runs, and has struck out 16. That brings his season total to a 2.59 ERA with 41 strikeouts.
Tonight’s start will be Woodruff’s ninth against the Diamondbacks in his career. Most recently, he was sent to the injured list after he completed 1 1/3 innings at the end of April. Overall, he has been up-and-down throughout the course of his career against the Diamondbacks, posting a 4.65 ERA with 51 strikeouts.
For the Diamondbacks, Merrill Kelly will be handed the ball to make his 15th start of the season. He’s been in the midst of his worst season up to this point in his career as he enters tonight with a 5.84 ERA, having allowed 18 home runs, 33 walks, and only striking out 33. He finished the month of June with a 7.31 ERA, as in his last start, he allowed five runs to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Lifetime against the Brewers, Kelly has been successful, posting a 3.41 ERA in 11 games. However, in his last outing against the Brewers in April, he gave up five runs on six hits and five walks.
Though no lineups have been announced yet, much of both of these lineups have faced both teams’ starting pitcher. For the Brewers, Sal Frelick and Brice Turang have witnessed the most success against Kelly, as they hope to replicate what they did in Milwaukee back in April.
You’ll be able to listen to tonight’s game on the Brewers Radio Network on WTMJ 620 while being able to watch it on Brewers.TV. First pitch will be another late one as it’s slated for 8:40 p.m.
Minneapolis, MN
People facing drug addiction in Minneapolis voice difficulties amid planned crackdown
On Friday afternoon, a Minneapolis police car drove slowly down Blaisdell Avenue towards Lake Street.
In response, a group of several dozen people moved further down the street, congregating at the KFC at the intersection. Minutes later, they returned to a spot that three of them admitted to be a spot to hang out, purchase and use fentanyl.
“The majority of us are addicted to fentanyl. The majority of us don’t want to be,” a man who wanted to go by Alon said. “It’s just really difficult getting off without having someone to hold our hand and guide us in the right direction.”
Alon said that he fell into a pattern of fentanyl use after becoming homeless. It was a similar story for Jeremiah and Mohamed, who told WCCO that they didn’t know where they were going to sleep on Friday night. But Blaisdell Avenue and Lake Street had become a reliable place to spend the day.
“It’s a place to go. A lot of times people don’t have a place to go,” Mohamed said.
Both men said that drugs are abused on the block, but claimed that no one else in the neighborhood was getting hurt.
“[There’s] not a lot of crime going on as far as like harming other people. We’re harming ourselves doing these drugs,” Jeremiah said.
The city would likely designate the area as an open-air drug market. Just this week, Mayor Jacob Frey was joined by local law enforcement and Native American organizations to announce a crackdown on drug users and sellers in these kinds of public spaces.
“You can get services that we will offer and you can get better. We’ll make sure that those services are readily accessible,” Frey said. “But if you don’t accept those services, you can’t continue to hurt our neighborhoods and make our streets less safe.”
The announcement comes as concerns continue to grow over public fentanyl use, discarded needles and criminal activity in areas like Cedar Avenue and Highway 55. City officials emphasized that enforcement will be paired with efforts to connect people to resources. Those with the city say they will continue helping individuals find housing and addiction treatment while expanding access to Brixadi, a medication that helps reduce opioid cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
Naomi Wilson, a community organizer who has criticized Frey’s approach towards drug markets and homeless encampments in the past, said that “criminalization” will only create more harm, and that the city should explore designating safe, public areas for drug use while creating more stable housing options.
“All we are asking from the mayor is to partner with advocates to partner with City Council on an interim step that’s not criminalization,” Wilson said. “I think the issue is that with all the fencing around the city, people don’t have anywhere to be. They don’t have anywhere where they can be safe at nighttime.”
On social media, Councilmember Jason Chavez likened Mayor Frey’s announcement to the city starting a “War on Drugs.”
“Our community has told us what it actually needs. A safe location, safe outdoor spaces, tiny home villages, real pathways off the street, and housing first, a compassionate approach, not another arrest that leaves someone with a record, further from housing, further from a job, and further from the stability they need to get well,” Chavez posted online.
He ignored a request for comment from WCCO.
On Blaisdell Avenue, Jeremiah was blunt. He said he knew city services were available, noting that many simply weren’t interested.
“Whether people are a drug addict or just lazy, they don’t tend to go for it. But they’re [services] definitely available,” Jeremiah said.
During Thursday’s announcement, Frey argued that the goal is not criminalization.
“After years of outreach, we cannot stand by while drug use continues to harm our neighbors,” Frey said.
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