Farm Bureau prez renews call for trade, not aid

Trump trade war reduces Ill. soybean exports to a third of level three years ago

IFB President Richard Guebert Jr. testifies before Congress on agricultural trade. (FarmWeekNow.com video)

By Ted Cox

The president of the Illinois Farm Bureau renewed calls for trade, not aid on Wednesday in testimony before Congress.

Richard Guebert Jr., IFB president since 2013, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee. Pointing out that Illinois is uniquely positioned to serve both foreign and domestic markets thanks to its central location and access to rivers and railroads, he said Illinois farmers exported $2.3 billion in soybeans in 2016, “almost all of them to China.” The follow year, Illinois soybean growers did more than $2 billion in trade, second to only petroleum as a state export product.

In 2018, however, “the trade war hit,” he added, and the steel tariffs President Trump imposed not only “increased the cost of grain storage,” but also cut soybean exports in half due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs. Last year saw an additional reduction to $800 million in soybean exports.

“We’re about a third of what we were just three years ago,” Guebert said, with farm profitability down in Illinois and across the Midwest and farm bankruptcies on the rise.

“Our working capital has declined at warp speed,” he said. “Farmers are pretty much out of the market for new equipment,” despite tax breaks intended to ease investment in machinery.

Although he acknowledged that Trump’s $28 billion in trade-war bailouts — formally known as the Market Facilitation Program — had compensated for lost farm income almost “dollar for dollar,” he renewed farmers’ calls for trade, not aid.

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Without access to overseas markets and to the 96 percent of consumers who don’t live in this country, we can’t make ends meet.”

IFB President Richard Guebert Jr. (FarmWeekNow.com video)

“Without access to overseas markets and to the 96 percent of consumers who don’t live in this country, we can’t make ends meet,” Guebert said. “That’s not a theory, that’s reality — our reality.

“Illinois farmers, like all farmers across this great country, would much rather earn their living from the marketplace,” he added. “We would much rather have expanded trade.”

Guebert expressed optimism about the first phase of a trade pact signed with China last year, which is supposed to guarantee $40 billion in Chinese agriculture purchases. He called it “a huge and timely economic lift to American agriculture,” even as he acknowledged that, due to the coronavirus outbreak in China and other trade complications, no new ag buys have been completed yet.

“Farmers and ranchers all across America are optimistic,” Guebert said. “We patiently await the benefits on this new trade agreement.”

At the outbreak of the trade war in 2018, Illinois Soybean Growers led calls for “trade, not aid.”

FarmWeekNow.com reported on Guebert’s appearance before Congress, including video of his testimony.