A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
House Republicans are seeking $230 billion in cuts that will largely impact SNAP food benefits for low-income families. And that, along with the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID, might make life for America's farmers a lot more difficult. You see, both SNAP and USAID work with the Department of Agriculture and American farmers to produce the commodities they make, such as corn and soybeans. Aaron Lehman is a fifth-generation farmer who grows corn and soybeans just north of Des Moines. Lehman's also president of the Iowa Farmers Union. When I spoke with him recently, he told me how these proposed cuts might impact the bottom lines of farmers just like him.
AARON LEHMAN: We're meeting with our creditors, trying to line up our financing for the year, make all of our planting decisions right now. So it's a very critical time. And it's the wrong time for us to have to worry about whether our partnerships and our commitments are going to be cut or withdrawn completely.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, with all the news that happened with USAID over the last couple of weeks, I think people were kind of looking at that, Aaron, and thinking about what it means around the world as opposed to in the United States. Is there any direct connection to what a farmer like you might be dealing with with having something like USAID go away?
LEHMAN: Farmers are big partners in USAID, right? Some of the work going on to help people around the world involves food that we grow here. And when those efforts are completely shut off, we have a lot of commodities that we're sitting on, trying to figure out where that should go to market. And it further depresses our markets all around because there's more of a supply that's not being put to good use.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, when it comes to SNAP, that's the program that uses products that farmers grow here in the United States. How might cuts to the SNAP program impact farmers directly?
LEHMAN: So that just means we're having less of a market for what we grow will go in to help our food-insecure people in this country. Beyond that, we know that there's a big portion of our food-insecure folks come from rural areas, a much higher percentage than most people even realize. So making cuts to SNAP really hurts our rural communities.
MARTÍNEZ: Were you at all expecting this or at least had it in the back of your mind as the new administration started to take over? Is that something that you thought, well, this might happen?
LEHMAN: Well, we knew that there were some efforts that were consistent with Project 2025 that dealt with some of these things. And it certainly seems like the cuts are being made to send a message or to make a point rather than to find a solution. We in rural America want to find solutions for more efficient government, but we don't like being used in a way just to make a point.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, speaking of messaging, has the Trump administration messaged to farmers at all about what their plans might be and how they might be able to help if indeed this becomes a serious problem?
LEHMAN: We're just getting to that point, right? We hope that, moving ahead, that we'll be prioritizing what is important and how we can make those commitments to farmers and our landscape and our food insecurity efforts, and to build a good food system - that can all be put to the forefront rather than having the situation where it just feels like politics are kind of leading the way.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the Trump administration is planning what it calls reciprocal tariffs on countries that tax U.S. goods. How might these tariffs maybe impact the buying and selling of American farm products?
LEHMAN: Too often when there is a retaliatory tariff put in place, it's meant to target farm commodities first and foremost. But trade relations are built up by working with your trade partners over time. Farmers have invested in building these trade partnerships, so to have them destroyed by a go-it-alone approach sets us back years. When we had trade wars in the previous round, we had a situation where a lot of our buyers overseas started to see us as a less reliable trade partner, and they went to farmers in other places around the world. So we need to build those relations back up and stop using farmers as the first point of attack.
MARTÍNEZ: And is it fair to say that if you're struggling with these kinds of things, if farmers are struggling with this, people will start to notice these things in grocery stores, in the way their items and their groceries cost?
LEHMAN: Absolutely. I think we're seeing that the marketplace is already trying to brace for the inflation that takes place when you have this kind of disruption. And that's unfortunate. Farmers and consumers should be allies in this work. And unfortunately, when we have this kind of disruption, eventually, it means a tougher marketplace for consumers, fewer choices, higher prices. And unfortunately, it makes for a tougher situation on a farm as well.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, Aaron, thanks.
LEHMAN: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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