She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.

[BumRushDaShow]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Lasher (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: NBC News

March 22, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT


After Donald Trump won the presidency again, Rebecca Carlson was counting on this being the year things turned around for her 1,300-acre farm in northern Michigan. The farm has been in her family for generations but has struggled over the past several years amid the rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other operating expenses. Then, last year, bad weather wiped out much of her crop. But the return of Trump, she thought, would help reverse things.

“I was expecting to see a drastic turnaround for the better for my farm because the Republicans have always been for the American farmer,” said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.

Prices for cherries, her main crop, had increased during Trump's first term after his policies cut down on competition from overseas, and she was hoping to see a similar economic boost this time around. Instead, her farm has been caught up in the widespread government funding freezes, jeopardizing her ability to hire the workers she needs for this season's harvest. It could leave her $200,000 in debt if she's unable to access the grant money that had been awarded to her farm.

“I’ll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,” Carlson said. “During Trump’s first administration, a lot of farmers — not all, but a lot of farmers — saw the positive side to his tariffs and to his agricultural dealings." "Now, we’re not seeing that," she said. "Now, we’re seeing the actual opposite.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/hoped-trump-revive-farm-now-worries-policies-bankrupt-rcna197320

[CrispyQ]

1. Tariffs were okay when they affected other farmers but now...

[wintemark]

5. Its funny how they were all for it until...

"but this is impacting me and people I know"

Shouldn't be supprising "they" are like this, this is how to felt about COVID too.

[NotHardly]

47. She's the answer to the question "how stupid can you be?"

[NotHardly]

16. "He's hurting the wrong people"...excuse for the stupid.

[BaronChocula]

2. Good!

If she was a supporter of the Democratic Party certain news outlets would be calling her a welfare queen.

[Tarzanrock]

3. Republican "Welfare Queen" farmer sucking on the government teat cries the blues.

I had thought that these people were supposed to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Just another rightwing Republican begging for some government, taxpayer funded, handout. Just why is she "deserving" of a whopping $200,000 "grant" from the U.S. government to hire "overseas" workers to pick her cherries? Just another "free lunch" handout to this Republican voting welfare queen! Tough titty said the Kitty -- the milk tastes shitty!

[BumRushDaShow]

9. ...

Tough titty said the Kitty -- the milk tastes shitty!

[Tarzanrock]

10. Fuck you, Republican voting bitch!

Fuck you, bitch, for voting for the Turd! Joe Biden and the Democrats gave your "ungrateful" ass those monies for your farm and you thank Joe Biden and the Democrats for that good fortune and for those agricultural grant monies ($200,000) by voting for Republicans and the Turd. Fuck you! Enjoy your economic losses! Maybe, when you idiot Republican Shitheads suffer enough economically -- you will vote differently.

[Cirsium]

32. It is a compromise

The 20 year long ever-escalating assault on immigrant workers has caused a severe labor shortage here. The H2A workers - from the same places non-GH2A workers came from, not from "overseas" - are more expensive and less efficient. It is not a good deal for the growers nor for the workers. It is a stop gap to keep food production from moving overseas. Republicans want to have their cake and eat it, too - terrorize immigrants without impacting food supply. Of course, Wall Street doesn't mind food production moving overseas. In this case, cherry production is moving to Turkey - fewer environmental regulations and worker protections, bigger profits for the corporate food industry and better ROI for investors.

Tart cherries are mechanically harvested, not hand-picked. So there is that. The farm labor is needed mostly for other crops.

$200,000 is hardly "whopping." 10 workers for the season for one small farm, maybe? It is nothing. That includes transportation to the US and housing. The "whopping" amounts of taxpayer money are being spent on Gestapo raids and concentration camp detention and rendition, targeting the experienced and motivated workers coming here on their own and trying to build a future for their families.

Ag subsidies, in general, are for the benefit of the eaters, not so much the growers. There is a long tradition for this, going back to the formation of the land grant college system, cooperative extension, the public health agencies, Farm Credit, the USDA, etc. We should not be using Republican "a waste of taxpayers money" arguments about this.

[yardwork]

55. She also whines about US workers:

“The American worker doesn’t like labor, they don’t like to do laborious jobs,” Carlson said. “They don’t want to do the hard labor, and that’s what’s frustrating, because we would love to hire U.S. workers, but we can’t get them to show up. We can’t get them to follow through. We can’t get them to finish the season.”

Sounds to me like she probably has unreasonable expectations of her workers, so she's used the migrant program to hire desperate people with no rights, whom she can bully into working in unreasonable conditions.

Migrants have the jobs most Americans would be appalled to do - working in horrible, unsafe conditions in slaughter houses, poultry plants, etc.

[tanyev]

4. "the Republicans have always been for the American farmer"

[NickB79]

7. Right?!?!

Here in Minnesota, our party is literally called the DFL: Democrat Farm Labor.

Republicans HATE any small farmers not backed by big corporations.

[brush]

8. Since when? It'a amazing how gullible some magats are.

[hamsterjill]

6. Too bad, lady.

Next!!!

No tears from me for the idiots who had to learn the hard way. They took the rest of us down the shit hole with them and I will forever hold them accountable for that.

[multigraincracker]

11. 90% of Michigans tart cherries are shipped to France.

All she needs now is a trade war with France.

[LisaL]

13. Even without a trade war,

something tells me many countries won't want to use American products.

[Cirsium]

35. That is so not true

The Montmorency tart cherry variety is thought to have originated in France, brought to Quebec by early French settlers. It was found that it did extremely well in Northwest lower Michigan. 70% of the crop nationally comes from here in Michigan. A small percentage of the crop is exported, mostly to Canada and to the UK.

Full disclosure: I am not an owner, but I have been around the tart cherry orchards all my life. I think I first picked tart cherries in 1962, I eat tart cherries every day, and I am looking out the window at a cherry orchard as I type this.

[CanonRay]

12. "Republicans have always been for the American farmer"

Sain no farmer anywhere during the Depression.

[Cirsium]

14. Bad weather?

"Bad weather wiped out most of the crop?" It is climate change, not "bad weather," that has caused crop losses here in cherry country over the last 25 years.

"Her farm had been awarded a grant worth $400,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the costs associated with hiring seasonal workers from overseas through the H-2A visa program, which farmers have used for years to hire temporary agricultural workers. "

The visa program "farmers have used for years?" Hardly. The program was started by the Biden administration in September 2023.

The labor crisis has been caused by the anti-immigrant hysteria, fomented by Republicans.

The downward pressure on price the last few years has been caused by imports from Turkey where the cherry orchards are heavily subsidized by the government. Nothing to do with Trump.

This video is pretty good. Full disclosure, I know most of the people in the video pretty well (to say the least).

[IbogaProject]

34. Cool video if a somewhat sad topic

Thank you.

[DinahMoeHum]

15. Another prey for the leopards. . .

[Cirsium]

37. The public will be hurt

The public will be hurt when this ag sector goes down. The developers are chomping at the bit. That is where the big money is, not in farming.

There are 300 or so growers here, I would guess about 40-45% vote Democratic. But in this area, dominated by cherry orchards, 10,000 people voted for Trump.

Farm owners do vote Republican, but no more so and perhaps less than owners in any other industry. Are they stupid or doing so? Yes.

[0rganism]

17. Fear not, Rebecca! An agribusiness megacorp eagerly waits in the wings to buy your farm

At very reasonable prices, don't worry. Of course, since your output has been reduced due to your lack of prison labor contracts, you will have to sell out for a lower price, but if you're lucky and well-connected, it might still be enough to pay off your outstanding debt.

[Cirsium]

49. No

The orchards here are preventing luxury resorts and suburban sprawl. Cherries will come from Turkey, that's all. Cheaper labor, fewer environmental regulations, less health and safety protocols, massive government subsidies from the Turkish government.

Selling the farms to developers would make the growers very wealthy. You have to love farming to keep going. The kids and grand kids of growers usually sell out. It will all be gone soon, not to worry.

There are no prison labor contracts here. It is a serious problem, however, and not just in agriculture

Prison inmates are picking fruits and vegetables at a rate not seen since Jim Crow.

Convict leasing for agriculture – a system that allows states to sell prison labor to private farms – became infamous in the late 1800s for the brutal conditions it imposed on captive, mostly black workers.

Federal and state laws prohibited convict leasing for most of the 20th century, but the once-notorious practice is making a comeback.

Under lucrative arrangements, states are increasingly leasing prisoners to private corporations to harvest food for American consumers.

As current anti-immigrant policies diminish the supply of migrant workers (both documented and undocumented), farmers are not able to find the labor they need. So, in states such as Arizona, Idaho and Washington that grow labor-intensive crops like onions, apples and tomatoes, prison systems have responded by leasing convicts to growers desperate for workers.

(Creative Commons license)

https://www.hcn.org/articles/agriculture-farmers-turn-to-prisons-labor-to-fill-labor-needs/

[Norrrm]

18. " jeopardizing her ability to hire the workers she needs for this season's harvest."

Hire the republicans who lost their jobs to the now deported undoc immigrants.

[Strelnikov_]

19. Face. It's What's for Dinner.

Thanks farmers!

[Cirsium]

38. Wrong target

There are not enough farm owners to have any impact on elections.

[Solly Mack]

20. You'll bleed money now.

[NewEnglandAutumn]

21. I don't care

She is getting what she voted for. I save my sympathy for those who deserve it.

[DeeDeeNY]

22. Cry Me A River

[relayerbob]

23. Idiots

Republicans have never (or at least in a few generations) supported farmers. They support giant corporations who hire migrants to do the work at slave wages, perhaps. But beyond that, they only want their electoral votes, because they know they are more valuable, and cheaper to obtain.

[GiqueCee]

24. If she had done the research...

... that a third-grader could have done, she would have known that Trump doesn't care about ANYONE but himself. Sorry, Becky, but you brought this on yourself. You, and others like you, are responsible for the horrors we're all facing now. Thanks a pantload.

[ananda]

25. Crazy idiocy. Republicans have NOT always been good for farmers.

The New Deal literally saved my grandparents' family,
kept them from starving to death, gave my dad a job
with the CCC, etc.

They thought Roosevelt was God.

[Tribetime]

26. You can't fix stupid.Sounds like she still supports drump

[Lokee11]

27. AWwwwww

Well bless her little MORONIC heart ❤️!!!!

[Deep State Witch]

28. Leopard Chow

Congrats, honey. Your face just became leopard chow.

[al bupp]

29. If there's any more schadenfreude in this thread

I'll have to go get a virtual train coat for al the crocodile tears being shed.

[OldBaldy1701E]

39. OH, but...

https://i.postimg.cc/xTst9M46/temp-Imageea7t-Mh.avif

[al bupp]

50. I know, right!

[jrthin]

30. A common theme coming from tsf supporters: their utter selfishness.

[mdbl]

31. "I'll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,"

Farmers are so good at farming and so dumb at politics to the point of being self-destructive.

[Ocelot II]

33. Pretty soon the leopards will be too fat to climb up and lurk in her cherry trees,

but it will be too late.

[Bobstandard]

36. Bleed Republican. like so many others

Dems might dress the wound but it will probably be too late

[Aristus]

51. If she bleeds out,

small loss.

I almost can’t believe I’m saying something so cruel. But we know how the MAGAts hate empathy and compassion. So we have to speak a language they understand.

[Demobrat]

40. You should be proud to sacrifice for your orange god.

It’s patriotic. Pain before gain, and all that.

[Raven123]

41. What positives did farmers see from Trump's previous tariffs?

Hadn’t heard that before

[Americanme]

53. They got the bailout

that we taxpayers paid for. I seem to remember a lot of farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides before that.

[Dave Bowman]

42. I won't shed any tears for that selfish idiot.

[Demovictory9]

54. Me either

[RainCaster]

43. Kissing TSF's butt left a "sour taste in her mouth"

I have no fucks to give.

[Justice matters.]

44. Tell her she's a "communist" for cashing in subsidies from the gobernment.

Well, that's how her hair furhair calls the left so it's time to lift yourself up from your bootstraps, stupido.

[Blue Full Moon]

45. That's JD's thing, he buys bankrupt family farms.

[ButchMcMuffin]

46. Start growing weed you dumb bitch

It's more profitable than cherries.

[angrychair]

48. Just insane

This statement is demonstrably not true...ever. Never.

“I was expecting to see a drastic turnaround for the better for my farm because the Republicans have always been for the American farmer,” said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.

That is the thing that blows my mind is this is a completely fact free statement that should be evident all around any rural farmers. I know several. All Republicans and I cannot for the life of me understand why.
The lightly or completely unregulated use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and steroids and waste run off, has been ruinous for many small family farms in the long run.
Republican trade imbalances. Big corporate factory farms. Mono-cropping corn. Anti immigration policies, all hurt family farms.

[yardwork]

52. Republicans are NOT friends to American farmers.

They're just not.

And during Trump's first term a lot of farmers suffered from the tariffs and random deportations, but most of them just blamed Obama.

[Pototan]

56. Farmers and Veterans have something in common

They both voted 70% for Trump.

And both groups are getting fucked the hardest by Trump.

[GreenWave]

58. Because now he has to work harder than last time. It's revenge.

[mwb970]

57. 'The Republicans have always been for the American farmer," said Carlson, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter.

Rebecca. The republicans have never been for the American farmer. FIFY.

[Lasher]

59. Locking.

We see this as a feature story.