President Donald Trump recently announced $12 billion in federal aid money to help farmers across the country who are directly impacted by the retaliatory tariffs on the soybean and pork industries.

While the details have yet to be finalized about how the relief will be handled, local reactions are starting to take shape. Iowa Senator and Boone County farmer Jerry Behn believes President Trump’s negotiations to get a more fair trade between America and China is the right thing to do, even though he doesn’t like the idea of tariffs.

“The reality is if he can come in with some kind of a ‘bailout’ or some kind of a temporary patch to get farmers through. Because there are some farmers I think that could actually be facing some serious economic problems, perhaps even bankruptcy over some of these low prices.”

 

Rippey-area farmer John Muir isn’t as sold on the idea of how the program may end up working itself out.

“If it happens and it comes along that’ll be a nice tool for us to use because it is hitting us in our pocketbooks. It’s having an effect and it’ll have more of an effect as this year goes on. But as far as banking on it, I’m not banking on it yet.”

Greene County farmer Pete Bardole echoes Muir’s comments and adds he would rather deal with the ebbs and flows of the stock market.

“We all would rather just have a good crop and be able to compete in a free market and we can compete with anybody in the world. But if the (federal) government is going to do something to help, we’ll accept that help. But we would rather just sell our grain on the market and not have the artificially low (prices) that we have right now.”

Behn points out that a grain marketer said the world’s consumption of soybeans is going to be the same, but where countries choose to purchase their soybeans from may change.