For farmers, rising prices and market disruptions hit hard

The rising cost of energy and unpredictable markets that have come out of the Iran war and Trump’s tariff policies have made it an especially hard year for farmers.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal checked in with our go-to soybean and hog farmer, Brian Duncan in Illinois. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: I will give you the easy question first, as I usually do. How are things on the farm?

Brian Duncan: Well, right now, I'd say the only thing certain is uncertainty. We're watching markets there’s some disruption, but the livestock complex is showing some profitability, which is a nice change of pace. And so, I'd say it's a mixed bag, but we're upright and able to take nourishment, so that's a good thing.

Kai Ryssdal: I hear that. Let me ask you a couple of very specific sort of infrastructure kinds of things. Livestock complex, you said, is doing okay. I do wonder, though, about getting your product to market, transportation, fuel costs, all of those things. Are they biting you?

Brian Duncan: Well, now the ripple effect is certainly going to be felt. I mean, when you see diesel go up $1 a gallon, that's obviously going to affect the cost of transportation, not only of my products to market, but distributed through the throughout the food chain. And I worry about the ultimate impact that will have on the consumer's pocketbook, how they'll shop, where they'll reach at the protein counter.

Kai Ryssdal: You know, I don't often turn interviews this way when I'm talking to farmers and folks who actually make stuff in this economy, but you are a consumer too. What are you doing when you go to the store?

Brian Duncan: We're fortunate, we harvest some of our own animals, but so that helps. But actually, today, I was at the store looking for cheaper cuts of meat, and I'm biased, but pork is a huge bargain right now. Fortunately, our kids are raised and grown, so it's my wife and I and our consumables aren't what they once were when we were a large family.

Kai Ryssdal: Back to specifics last time we talked, which was a year ago or so, maybe just a little short of a year you started, then the way you started today, about uncertainty, and I guess I wonder what a year of trade policy uncertainty does to a guy.

Brian Duncan: Makes it hard to plan long term and and as we saw the Supreme Court strike down the tariffs, and it makes us wonder where we go from here. [United States Trade Representative] Jamieson Greer, I believe it was a week ago, said trade was now going to be viewed through the lens of a national security strategy. I don't know what that means. I really don't. And is that fungible? Does that change from one day to the next? So I'm just not sure where we go from here.

Kai Ryssdal: Do you feel that the folks making trade policy are listening to you? I mean, you're not leading the Farm Bureau anymore. But you still got some oomph, and I imagine you could get Ambassador Greer on the phone if you wanted to.

Brian Duncan: Nah, you give me way more credit. I'm a hog farmer from Ogle County, Illinois. I am a member of the Farm Bureau still. I think you've got competing visions, and again, this whole idea of national security strategy. Obviously, we want a secure country, but how that's tied to trade and what that looks like day after day, I'm not sure. But it's a frustrating time. Kai, I think as we look at trade, we've got to focus on what we can do domestically.

Kai Ryssdal: Farmers, especially with the challenges you all have been having in light of the President's trade policies, get a lot of press, relatively speaking. But do you get a lot of love?

Brian Duncan: Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. I mean, there has been some emergency funding that's that's gone out and that's appreciated by agriculture. But Kai, I think I've told you this every time we talk, we would much rather get our dollars from the marketplace than from the mailbox. You don't thrive from one emergency bailout to the next. You thrive by building markets, and then growing those markets, and expanding them and I'm just not sure if that is completely understood at this point in time.