Two farmers in Nebraska are increasingly frustrated with what they see as inaction on Capitol Hill to block tariffs that would disrupt their livelihoods and that have already hurt their bottom lines. For Ben Steffen — who runs a dairy farm that also produces corn, soybeans and beef — tough rhetoric out of Washington hits closest to home when he sees market prices for his products drop sharply because of a presidential tweet or comment.
If a bill or mortgage payment is due and a farmer needs money, they might be forced to sell grains, for example, on a day when the market “gets whipsawed with new announcements from Washington,” he said on a press call with reporters. “You may be caught selling grain on a day when you have no choice but to take a price that’s gotten disrupted.”
Bart Ruth, a soybean farmer, echoed the same sentiment and said “saber-rattling” has caused soybean prices to take a 28-cent hit “just because of uncertainty in the marketplace.”
“In the case of our operation, that’s a $24,000 difference from what we could have priced these at six weeks ago,” he said.
All politics are local: The call was organized by the Senate campaign of Jane Raybould, a Democrat who is running against the state’s incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer. Both farmers labeled themselves lifelong Republicans but said growing frustration with Washington led them to support Raybould.
“It’s not a political issue. This is a Nebraska issue,” Steffen said. He added that he had written to every one of Nebraska’s representatives in the House and Senate and had only gotten “a form-letter response” from one of them.
Beyond that, the only contact the farmers really get from Washington are regular press releases showing how lawmakers “are talking to the administration and they are standing up, supposedly, for our concerns,” he continued. “I’m past the point where I’m interested in press releases. … I’m interested in action.”
This post originally appeared in Politico Morning Trade.