After Donald Trump won the presidency again, Rebecca Carlson was counting on this being the year things turned around for her 1,300-acre farm in northern Michigan.
The farm has been in her family for generations but has struggled over the past several years amid the rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other operating expenses. Then, last year, bad weather wiped out much of her crop. But the return of Trump, she thought, would help reverse things.
“I was expecting to see a drastic turnaround for the better for my farm because the Republicans have always been for the American farmer,” said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.
Prices for cherries, her main crop, had increased during Trump’s first term after his policies cut down on competition from overseas, and she was hoping to see a similar economic boost this time around. Instead, her farm has been caught up in the widespread government funding freezes, jeopardizing her ability to hire the workers she needs for this season’s harvest. It could leave her $200,000 in debt if she’s unable to access the grant money that had been awarded to her farm.
“I’ll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,” Carlson said. “During Trump’s first administration, a lot of farmers — not all, but a lot of farmers — saw the positive side to his tariffs and to his agricultural dealings.”
“Now, we’re not seeing that,” she said. “Now, we’re seeing the actual opposite.”
Voters in rural and agriculture-reliant areas have been one of Trump’s most consistent bases of support since he first emerged on the political scene a decade ago. But the early days of his second administration have introduced a lot of risk to this sector of the economy. Trump’s proposed tariffs could drive up the price of grain and fertilizers while lowering demand overseas for U.S. agriculture products. Immigration crackdowns could cripple farm workforces, where an estimated 40% of workers lack the proper documentation to work in the U.S. Meanwhile, spending cuts and freezes have directly affected federally funded programs that provide loans and grants to farmers.
Trump has acknowledged his support from farmers and talked about how his policies would benefit them by reducing imports of food from abroad, which could increase demand for some U.S.-grown products.
“Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer — I love the farmer,” Trump said during his address to Congress this month.
But Trump acknowledged that there will be “an adjustment period” as his policies take shape. The president added that farmers will “probably have to bear with me again” as they did during his first term, when the tariffs he put in place on China resulted in retaliatory tariffs on a range of U.S. agriculture products, causing U.S. exports to China to tumble.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Friday that the department was looking into program to help “mitigate any economic catastrophes that could happen to some of our farmers.” Asked whether that would include direct payments, Rollins said, “We’re working that out right now.”
While the situation with tariffs moves forward, Carlson says she doesn’t have much time to wait to solve her problems. Her farm had been awarded a grant worth $400,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the costs associated with hiring seasonal workers from overseas through the H-2A visa program, which farmers have used for years to hire temporary agricultural workers.
The USDA describes the program on its website as a way to address labor shortages on American farms and reduce illegal immigration. It’s backed by $65 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan, a Covid stimulus bill passed in 2021.
But now, funding for that program appears to be frozen. Farmers like Carlson have been unable to get reimbursed for expenses they’ve already incurred under the grant, and there has been no official guidance from the USDA on whether they will get reimbursed for future expenses, said Michael Marsh, head of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a trade group that works with the many farmers using the H-2A visa program.
“It’s kind of like have the rug pulled out from underneath you,” Marsh said.
That’s left farmers having to borrow money while they wait to be reimbursed for expenses they’ve already paid for under the grant. And it means they are uncertain on whether to move forward with taking on the additional cost of hiring workers from overseas, Marsh said.
“We’re getting right in the middle of the busy season where we’re either planting crops or pruning vines and trees, where we really need the workers here,” said Marsh. “But now, you’re out the money that you’ve been planning on being there for you.”
The Department of Agriculture didn’t respond to a request for comment about the status of the funding.
Farmers aren’t alone in feeling the effects of sweeping cuts and funding freezes across the government, many of which are at the center of court fights. Shortly after taking office, Trump issued executive orders pausing some funds from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act along with funding for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump has also been cutting grants to research institutions and dismantling whole agencies, like USAID, and many of the contracts and grants that come from those agencies.
Carlson was planning to use her USDA grant money to hire 10 temporary workers from Guatemala to help with this year’s harvest. The grant would help pay to house the required workers on her property and the visa fees and airfare to fly the workers to and from the U.S.
The added workers on her farm would have been a game changer, she said. Since taking over the family farm in 2019, most of the labor has been done by her, her husband, two year-round employees and a few local seasonal workers. With the added help, she could run multiple shifts a day picking cherries to get as much of her crop harvested as possible before it starts to spoil. It also would give her more time with her four children, including her 3-year-old twins.
The program to bring over the foreign workers hasn’t been cheap or easy, but she saw it as the only way to boost her workforce.
“The American worker doesn’t like labor, they don’t like to do laborious jobs,” Carlson said. “They don’t want to do the hard labor, and that’s what’s frustrating, because we would love to hire U.S. workers, but we can’t get them to show up. We can’t get them to follow through. We can’t get them to finish the season.”
Carlson has been trying to get an answer from the USDA about the status of her grant, but her grant manager told her that they were “awaiting guidance from leadership.” When she followed up more recently, she received an out-of-office email.
“We have had no direction from our grant project managers,” she said. “We’ve asked them, are we supposed to continue meeting our milestones and continue meeting our goals? Or do we stop and wait? All we get back with a response is an automated message.”
To prepare for the workers arrival, including renovating housing on her property to bring it up to code, Carlson has already spent $200,000 of her own money that she was expecting to get reimbursed under her grant’s contract. Without that money in her bank account, she doesn’t expect to have the funds to pay her existing staff to get through the growing season.
Carlson also doesn’t have much time left to make a decision about whether to spend even more to bring workers over. By April 5, she is supposed to have purchased the airfare for the workers she was planning to hire, who were supposed to arrive in May.
“We’re at that point where if we don’t get this funding, there could be issues of bankruptcy,” she said. “The American farmer is failing right now because you’re freezing funding meant to help the American farmer.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
