The USDA Wants to Cut 2,000 Farm Jobs. Here’s What That Means.

Hey folks, Planting season is breathing down everybody's neck and the markets are doing what markets do: making sure nothing is simple. Crude oil just fell off a cliff on ceasefire news, tariffs are still squeezing both sides of the export equation, and the USDA wants to cut the people who answer your phone calls by a quarter. We've got all of it this week, plus some thoughts on the one thing that doesn't show up in any balance sheet but matters more than most of us realize.

TARIFFS ARE SQUEEZING FARMERS FROM BOTH ENDS AND THE MATH DOESN'T ADD UP

American farmers are getting hit from two directions at once. On the export side, tariffs are blocking access to major buyers, most notably China, which historically absorbs a significant share of U.S. corn and soybean production. On the input side, fertilizer prices are running 10 to 15 percent above last year due to the same trade barriers that are supposed to be helping. You're selling into a smaller market and paying more to do it. That is a squeeze, and there is no soft way to describe it.

The Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer showed improved farmer sentiment this week, driven partly by better commodity prices and anticipated government payment expectations. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called signs of Chinese purchasing activity "very encouraging" through 2028. That's fine as far as it goes, but encouraging signs don't pay for anhydrous. The fertilizer increase is already showing up in operating budgets, and if Chinese buyers stay unpredictable through summer, the soybean basis is going to reflect it.

Industry groups are actively pushing into Southeast Asian soybean markets as a partial hedge against China volatility. Demand in the region is real and growing. Whether it can absorb enough volume to matter is a longer-term question. For this planting season, the reality is that you're pricing inputs before you know what the export picture looks like in October. Pricing inputs blind is an uncomfortable way to run a business.

THE USDA WANTS TO CUT 2,000 FARM SERVICE AGENCY JOBS AND CALL IT EFFICIENCY

The White House's proposed FY2027 USDA budget calls for a 19 percent cut in discretionary spending across the department. Inside that number is something that is going to matter a lot more to working farmers than any headline figure: a proposal to cut Farm Service Agency staffing from 8,135 employees in FY2025 down to 6,009 by FY2027. That is 2,126 people gone in two years from the agency that processes disaster payments, farm loan applications, conservation program enrollment, and everything else that connects federal farm policy to the people it's supposed to serve.

Conservation Technical Assistance is proposed at zero funding. Zero means gone. The program provides technical support to farmers working through USDA conservation programs, and this proposal eliminates it entirely. If you were planning to use that resource this year, the budget says you're on your own.

FSA county offices are often the only federal presence in rural counties. They are where a farmer walks in after a hailstorm and starts the paperwork to keep the operation alive. Cutting a quarter of that workforce does not make the agency more efficient. It makes the waitlist longer, the phone calls harder to return, and the rural county office that was already understaffed even more stretched. This is one to watch closely because budget proposals have a way of becoming budget reality.

Tork's Market Update What the numbers mean for the people actually in the field

This Week's Numbers

This ain't financial advice. I'm just a farmer with an opinion.

Sawyer's Spotlight The younger generation's take, straight from the barn

We had Vance Crowe in the barn recently and one of the things he does for a living is record families telling their life stories. Not a documentary, not a memoir project, not a history class assignment. Just a professional interview where your parents or grandparents sit down and talk through their actual life on camera, so their kids and grandkids have the real version of it down the road.

He told a story about a dad who came to pick up a recorded interview he'd done with his son. The kid was six. Months later the dad called back and said: if my house were on fire and I could only grab one thing, it would be that recording. He said he couldn't get it back any other way. The six year old had answered questions honestly, in his own voice, in a way he never would have if his dad had just sat him down and asked the same things directly.

Vance mentioned research out of Emory University that found kids who know their family stories are significantly less likely to struggle with depression, anxiety, and addiction than those who don't. That connection held even for adopted kids as long as the family they were adopted into told a clear story about who they were and what they stood for. The finding is functional, not sentimental. It is about what happens inside a person when they have a framework for who they are and where they came from.

Here's the deal: most of us have parents and grandparents who think their stories aren't interesting enough to record. They assume everyone already knows the important parts. They don't want to seem like they're making it about themselves. But the stories that exist in someone's head right now will not exist anywhere else once they're gone. That is just the reality of how this works. The journal you gave your mom that she never filled out didn't fail because she had nothing to say. It's hard to stare at blank pages and know where to start.

You don't need a professional. You need to show up, ask one good question, and shut up. Start with: what was your hardest year? Hit reply if that conversation happens this week.

4 Things That Caught Our Eye This Week

Planting season is here and the news is moving fast. Stay on top of what matters, forward this to someone who needs it, and if the Sawyer's Spotlight hit close to home this week, go make that phone call. You know who to call.

We'll see you in the barn.

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