Farmers weigh diversity of crops against trade wars, weather

In this video from The Associated Press Matt Griggs talks about his farm in Humboldt Tennessee Farmers in the United States are paying close attention to the ongoing commerce war between the United State and China especially as planting season has begun Matt Griggs owner of Griggs Farms LLC is a fifth-generation farmer in Tennessee whose farm dates back to and raises approximately acres of cotton corn soybeans and wheat China is the biggest importer of American soybeans But Griggs has various experience with this situation He weathered the last agreement dispute in between the two countries during President Donald Trump s first term and he declared he feels more prepared this time around Related Trump s sweeping tariffs procedures puts Minnesota farmers and their crops in bull s eye He announced that tariffs were just one consideration for him as he planned out this year s crops including weather and prices on the other crops He explained growing a variety of crops helps him minimize jeopardy across the farm We really didn t adjust our acres much because if we were to go whole hog in other crops say corn and cotton and those crops have adverse weather conditions and have a failure even though the price of soybeans might be down a little bit because of tariffs they could still be the more profitable crops commented Griggs Griggs mentioned he s going to be watching and ready to sell when he feels he can get reasonable prices for his soybeans He commented that tariffs like these can be beneficial when they inject industry volatility that might raise prices on soybeans Well when it comes to selling our soybeans this year we ve already forward contracted particular of our planned production and our hope is that with this volatility in the field hopefully at chosen point you know before harvest and then after harvest we ll have chosen more pricing opportunities where prices shoot up announced Griggs It might be briefly but if we can pull the trigger then and get chosen reasonable prices for our crops I think we ll be OK But while he has to roll the dice with his crops his costs might be going up in other strategies due to the tariffs Particular of the things that could affect us in is a lot of our parts that we need to fix our machines and stuff reported Griggs I would expect the cost on them later on the year to likely rise especially once we get into harvest With our combines or cotton pickers if they break down they could definitely be more expensive to fix The post Farmers weigh diversity of crops against exchange wars weather appeared first on MinnPost