Chris Gibbs—an Ohio farmer and participant in Small Businesses Against Tariffs—spoke with the Ohio Capital Journal about the trade war and how farmers are being impacted:
Tariff prices are hitting farmers in many ways, from competition, to parts and materials. While preparing for corn season, Shelby County farmer Chris Gibbs replaced a drive chain on his planter, and noticed the parts number for the company on one side, and “made in China” on the other.
“I don’t care where it comes from, but what I knew at that exact moment is that I paid tariff on that doggone thing,” Gibbs said.
Even without tariffs in the discussion, farmers are looking for some level of predictability from the government, as participants in an industry that lives and dies by weather conditions and good crop years.
When there are droughts or low commodity prices, farmers have a knack for figuring it out.
“You do it, you move money around, you dig nickels out of the couch, you put off buying capital assets,” Gibbs said. “You make do.”
But the recent changes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and a Farm Bill that has been limping along without a full renewal since 2018 have created a “cash-flow working capital crisis in agriculture,” according to Gibbs.