Trump Suggests U.S. Will Buy Argentine Beef to Lower Prices

(10/20/25) Farmdoc reports that President Donald Trump is proposing importing more Argentinian beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers. Trump has been working to help Argentina bolster its collapsing economy with a $20 billion credit swap line and additional financing from sovereign funds and the private sector in order to support his close ally, Argentinian President Javier Milei. Highlights:

• High prices paid to beef producers have been one of the few bright spots in the farm economy recently, as shrinking herds reduce slaughter numbers to levels not seen in decades. The 2025 beef calf production number is projected to be the lowest since 1941. Meanwhile, beef demand is at a 40-year high.
• Trump’s announcement about Argentinian beef caused feeder cattle prices to plunge, according to Progressive Farmer DTN. Several farm organizations and commodity groups have issued statements strongly objecting to the proposed trade move.
• Trump’s beef announcement comes after the President extended $20 billion in economic support to Argentina in September. Argentina responded to the bailout by removing its export taxes on soybeans and striking a major trade agreement with China. China recently ordered at least 10 cargoes of soybeans from the South American country, Reuters reported.
• According to USDA data, China — which received nearly a quarter of the U.S.’s soybean exports in 2024 — has not ordered any U.S. soybeans since May as a result of stiff tariffs imposed on products imported from that country. A report out of North Dakota State University estimates that countries other than the U.S. could provide China with all of its soybean needs during the entire 2025-2026 marketing year.

If you are a farmer, LSP would like to know how tariffs and current trade policies are impacting you. Let us know by taking our survey. It will only take a couple of minutes, but your answers will help us understand the effect the trade war is having on farmers in our area. All answers will be kept strictly confidential. 

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Farm Bankruptcies Have Increased in the Ninth District, Keeping Some Farmers Afloat

(9/25/25) Joe Mahon, writing for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota, reports that the number of farm operations filing for bankruptcy in the Ninth Federal Reserve District (Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, 26 counties in northwestern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) under Chapter 12 — the section of the Bankruptcy Code specifically for farms — increased in the first two quarters of this year. Highlights:

• The agriculture sector saw a boom from about 2010 to 2014. But since then, farm incomes have been relatively weak for the better part of a decade, with the exception of a short surge around the pandemic. The USDA forecast that farm incomes will increase this year, but approximately three-quarters of that growth is attributable to a projected increase in government payments.
• The weakness in farm incomes is largely driven by weak prices for crops. Particularly troubling is the level of farm debt over the past few years, which has continued to increase even as working capital remained stagnant. Joseph Peiffer, an attorney in Iowa who specializes in Chapter 12 and farm debt restructuring, said that underlying the increasing debt is a change in the structure from short-term borrowing (for things like operating loans) to longer-term borrowing.
• High land values and tax relief make Chapter 12 bankruptcies attractive for farms needing to restructure, writes Mahon.

For help dealing with financial and emotional problems related to farming, see LSP’s Farm Crisis Resources web page.

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USDA Ends Program to Help States Fight Monopolies

(9/26/25) Civil Eats reports that the USDA has cancelled a program that helped states tackle anti-competitive markets in agriculture. Highlights:

•  Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently announced new efforts to investigate market conditions that have led to high input prices for farmers. However, her announcement comes weeks after the USDA quietly cancelled a program that helped states tackle anti-competitive markets in agriculture.
•  Then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack set up the partnership program in 2023 to “enhance competition and protect consumers in food and agricultural markets,” and 31 states, led by both Democrats and Republicans, signed on to participate.
•  President Donald Trump also recently revoked former President Joe Biden’s executive order on tackling consolidation and boosting antitrust enforcement.

LSP members recently met with Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, to discuss the need for addressing monopolies and consolidation in agriculture via antitrust law enforcement. Details on that meeting, including information on a website and hotline where potential antitrust violations can be reported, are available here.

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These rural communities feed the world. They’re also going hungry.

(9/24/25) Investigate Midwest reports that over the past four decades, America’s agricultural output has nearly doubled, but in the rural communities that have made the U.S. a global food power, residents are increasingly finding it difficult to access enough food for themselves. Highlights:

• While the national food insecurity rate has dropped slightly over the past decade, farming-dependent counties have seen an 11.7% increase.
• Farming counties saw the second-highest increase among the six federal economic categories — farming, mining, recreation, manufacturing, government, and nonspecific — according to an analysis by Investigate Midwest of U.S. Census Bureau and Feeding America data.
• The nation’s 444 farming-dependent counties, largely concentrated in the Midwest, had an average food insecurity rate of 14.5%. While in line with the national average, the recent increase points to a worsening economy in rural America. Nearly three-fourths of all farming counties saw an increase in food insecurity rates from 2013 to 2023.
• In a 2020 survey of rural grocers conducted through University of Minnesota Extension, 49% of respondents reported concerns that their stores would go out of business within five years, reports MinnPost.
• The USDA will stop collecting and releasing statistics on food insecurity after this month; officials there say the numbers have become “overly politicized.”

For more on LSP’s work to develop community-based food systems that help connect farmers and eaters in a way that supports Main Street economies while feeding people, click here.

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What Happens to School Lunches in the MAHA Era?

(10/4/25) Writing in The New Yorker, Jessica Winter reports on the apparent incompatibility of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative and its antipathy toward programs that provide healthy, local food to school kids. Highlights:

• In March, the administration abruptly terminated a billion dollars in Biden-era funding that had helped food banks, schools, and childcare centers procure fresh food from local farmers. Today, there are active farm to school programs in all 50 states; almost half of these started up in the past few years.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the leader of the Make America Healthy Again movement, has often criticized the American food system, one in which, he says, “big corporate farms do just fine, while the small and medium family operators are squeezed to the point of collapse.” Kennedy has spoken frequently of how agribusiness, the food industry, and the National School Lunch Program are “poisoning our kids” with pesticide-laden, ultra-processed foods.
• Minnesota was the first state to sign a USDA food-for-schools cooperative agreement, in 2022, and since then has put millions of dollars of state and federal funds toward purchasing local, organic food for its meal programs, hiring new staff, and providing schools with upgraded ovens, freezers, coolers, and food processors to make cooking from scratch more feasible. The termination of the USDA programs reportedly cost Minnesota more than $17 million dollars over the next three years.
• “All the cuts really shake the farmers’ trust,” Aimee Haag, a former farmer who now serves as a farm to school coordinator for several rural Minnesota schools, told The New Yorker. “Farmers have a hard job. That’s why I quit. No one needs to make marketing these crops any harder. It makes farmers and rural communities feel forgotten.”

LSP recently worked with several partners to publish a special report, “Building the Farm to School Network in West Central Minnesota.” For a first-person glimpse at the opportunities and challenges related to connecting farmers with cafeterias, check out LSP Ear to the Ground podcast interviews with Aimee Haag, Janine Teske, and Jeanine Bowman.

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Opinion: Move Nitrogen Fertilizer Higher on Your Worry List

(10/17/25) Former lawmaker Jean Wagenius writes in the Minnesota Star Tribune about how nitrous oxide emissions from the overuse of nitrogen fertilizer to grow corn is the biggest source of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Highlights:

• In 2022, 70% of row crops’ emissions came from nitrous oxide and 30% from carbon dioxide.
• Many farmers rely on agricultural retailers to determine the amount of nitrogen fertilizer to apply. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture endorses this practice. “But fertilizer retailers have an obvious conflict of interest,” writes Wagenius. “Reducing the amount of nitrogen fertilizer they sell reduces their profits.”
• This conflict of interests hurts farmers, too. Farm financial data between 2017 and 2022 show that the least profitable farms spent 15-30% more on fertilizer per year than the most profitable farms. Financial data from 2023 show that the least profitable farms spent 33% more on fertilizer than the most profitable ones.

LSP’s Brian DeVore recently wrote a commentary in the Star Tribune describing how farmers are working together to share information on practices that build soil health and reduce reliance on chemical inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer.

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Why not vaccinate Minnesota turkeys for bird flu? It could start a trade fight.

(10/8/25) The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that although a vaccine exists for highly pathogenic avian influenza, there are concerns that utilizing it will prompt other countries to not purchase American-produced poultry products. Highlights:

• A nearly four-year outbreak of this version of the flu has wiped out 9.2 million birds in Minnesota alone.
  Nationally, nearly 180 million birds have died from bird flu or were culled to prevent its spread since the outbreak began in spring 2022, according to the USDA. The federal government has paid more than $1.4 billion to poultry owners to compensate them for the lost animals.
•  The USDA has spent $100 million on bird flu vaccine research this year, although the agency hasn’t authorized one for commercial use yet.
• It’s estimated the vaccines, additional surveillance, and an audit program to make sure the virus isn’t lurking in flocks could cost $2 a bird. The fear among importers is that vaccinated birds might not show symptoms of an infection, allowing the virus to spread across borders undetected.

A new LSP white paper argues that key questions need to be answered about the role industrialized poultry operations play in propagating highly pathogenic avian influenza. “Big Bird. Big Problem: How the Poultry Industry is Turning the Avian Flu Pandemic into a Source of Profit at Taxpayer’s Expense While Decimating Our Farm & Food System” is available here.

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