Local farmers feel strain of tariffs, late planting season

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — Agricultural tariffs between the U.S and China along with bad weather conditions were two of the impacts that farmers across the country have dealt with this year.

“Right now it looks like we’re going to be locked down on these tariffs and it’s going to affect the trade through the rest of the year,” said Johnny Verell of Verell Farms.

With the harvest season only a few weeks away, local farmers are beginning to prepare, even with impacts like the current trade wars still on their minds.

“The farmers have been in a recession for quite some time,” said Andrew Donnell of Donnell Century Farms. “The rest of the economy has not, but we farmers have still been, price-wise, in this recession for quite some time, four or five years now.”

The trade war with China has caused a strain on the profit from certain crops in the area including soybean and cotton.

“Pre-tariffs we were looking at $10.50, $11 soybeans and now we’re looking at sub $9, $8.50 range right now with soybeans,” Verell said. “We normally average 60 bushel soybeans, and you got a $3 to $4 reduction in price — it adds up a bit per acre.”

Tariffs are not the only impacts those working in the agricultural industry, like farmers, had to deal with for the year. Earlier this year, heavy rains in West Tennessee brought on a late planting season for some farmers, but Verell says he was still able to catch up.

“There’s part of the state up and down the Mississippi that still doesn’t have a crop plant, but we were able to get our crop planted, and we’ve got a pretty decent crop it looks like,” Verell said.

Even with a wet start this year, many farmers say the conditions for the rest of the year allowed them to still have a decent growing season.

“Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of rain here in West Tennessee,” Donnell said. “We’ve had a good growing crop and so we’re seeing the crops progress right along.”

He says he doesn’t expect any major impacts on the upcoming harvesting season.

“I think harvest will be good. We’ll need some good weather,” Donnell said.

“We just hope as farmers that we all can make a profitable crop and have a safe harvest,” Verell said.

The harvest season starts around the first week of September.