BOZEMAN — The Ag industry has concerns about the recent tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed on Canada and Mexico, so we checked with a Montana wheat farmer to hear what some of the biggest concerns are.
“There’s always the threat of losing the family farm, just as a whole within the country,” says Nathan Keane.
Nathan runs Upham Farm, located in north central Montana, 20 miles west of Big Sandy.
The farm was established in 1912 and has been passed down through generations. But with these new tariffs, Nathan is fearful.
“I would hate to see a farm end on my watch. I would love to see my kids take it over. So, it’s just an added stressor that we have that’s out of our control,” he says.
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Along with being a wheat farmer, Nathan is also the current secretary of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
He says that President Trump’s tariffs, which place a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% from China, couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Currently, farming as a whole is struggling. Commodity prices such as wheat have dropped significantly in the last couple of years,” Nathan tells me.
With prices down on crops across the board and prices rising for necessary items — a big one being fertilizer — turning a profit could become difficult.
“Farmers don’t really have a lot of choice to use fertilizer or not. They’ve got to use fertilizer. An import tariff on fertilizer would just effectively increase the price,” Eric Belasco, the department head of agricultural economics at Montana State University told MTN.
Belasco says fertilizer prices will be a hard hit on farmers. According to FarmDoc Daily, 90% of U.S. fertilizer is imported, and more than 80% of those imports come from Canada.
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Fertilizer prices are currently around $450 per ton. But with the 25% tariff, the price could increase by more than $100 per ton.
But what Belasco says could be an even harder hit than fertilizer prices rising? “You know, I think the big national concern is retaliatory tariffs."
“Farming in Montana relies on export markets,” says Eric. “We obviously don’t consume anywhere near what we produce. So when we think about agriculture in Montana, keeping good relationships with some of those other countries is critical."
Montana is the third largest wheat producer in the nation, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the top export market for U.S. wheat is Mexico, accounting for 40% of sales at $1.3 billion. And closely behind is China at $803 million. Wheat farmers like Nathan are concerned.
“We will see a struggle to export our wheat. They will find other buyers that they could buy cheaper,” Nathan explains.
But Nathan is trying to remain optimistic for his family's farm.
“My hope right now is that this won’t last very long. We can get some negotiations happening. It’s hard to run a business when you’re running a loss. And that’s the potential that we’re facing right now is a potential loss," he says.
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