WEST FARGO, N.D. – North Dakota agriculture experts have shared what they say is the urgent need for President Donald Trump to get trade deals done as producers are struggling.
Farmers in the southeast part of the state lost millions of bushels of grain storage from storms over the summer. That includes a tornado that hit the Enderlin area.
Listen: Jim Thompson and Justin Sherlock’s conversation with Scott Hennen
“Now the market with the way the basis is telling guys you need to store your soybeans. We don’t have a market for them,” Chair of the North Dakota Soybean Council Jim Thompson said in an interview with The Flag’s Scott Hennen at Big Iron.
Thompson runs a farm between Page and Ayr. He says he has been happy there has been an increase in soybean crushing plants in the state. President of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association Justin Sherlock says building more of those facilities isn’t a quick fix.
“That may take years and years and you still have to take care of the meal. We can’t use all that meal here in America, so we’re going to need trading partners and international markets to get rid of that meal,” Sherlock, a farmer near Dazey, told Hennen at Big Iron.
Another large issue Sherlock said is the tariffs the president has put on China. Mr. Trump said he did that in order to get better trade deals. China was at one point the largest buyer of American soybeans and has been buying them from Brazil as trade negotiations between China and the U.S. drag on.
“Our soybeans are cheaper than Brazilian soybeans if they could buy them, but once you throw those tariffs on… We’ve got tariffs on China, they put retaliatory tariffs on us. All of a sudden we’re not competitive again,” Sherlock said.
