You color, hide eggs for Easter. Farms like ours are struggling to provide them. | Opinion
Rather than make America first, the Trump administration has chaotically pushed for government disinvestments and a global trade war that put rural America – and my family ‒ last.
In February, I was shocked to see egg prices climb over $8, more than twice as expensive as a year ago and the most in decades. Though retail egg prices have fallen, they still look too high for many families looking to dye eggs this Easter.
Eggs are a staple for American families – with the average American eating more than 280 eggs last year. My family would know. Eggs aren’t just brunch for us. It’s been our livelihood for more than 25 years as free-range organic Georgia poultry farmers.
At its peak in 2019, our Soleil Farm in Oglethorpe raised about 150,000 chickens, half for eggs and half for the poultry. But our farm came under threat in 2022 from the worst avian flu in U.S. history, and our country is still struggling with another bird flu strain that has infected humans and caused egg prices to hit record highs.
Importing eggs from Turkey and South Korea might help with supply and ease prices temporarily, but the Trump administration’s ill-timed firing sprees along with detrimental trade policies and tariff actions have made rural American communities – the heart of President Donald Trump’s support ‒ less economically secure.
Amid bird flu, farmers culled millions of chickens ‒ but USDA fired workers helping us deal with outbreak
The administration’s first actions should have been to support rural families and businesses. But while their operations succumbed to millions of poultry culling, farmers discovered that the very labs responsible for testing their flocks had been culled themselves with 25% fired in a mass layoff.
Attempts to reverse course have had mixed results.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released in February a billion dollar plan to combat avian flu, which included $500 million for biosecurity, $400 million in financial relief and $100 million for vaccine research.
While a step in the right direction, the aid package is woefully insufficient. The loss for affected farmers alone clears over $1.4 billion with no slowdown in sight.
The administration’s haphazard scientific response resulted in 10,000 fired health employees and dramatic reductions in food safety inspectors.
In February, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division resigned to protest the mass layoffs. Then in March, the FDA’s top vaccine official resigned.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seeking to rehire essential staff. But no amount of rehiring can combat the strategic chasm between science and Kennedy’s comments about letting the bird flu virus spread through flocks.
This is dangerous because avian flu spreading to cows and other livestock would ravage rural economies.
Tariffs against our largest agriculture markets hurt rural America
It’s one thing for the Trump administration to remove the safety net for American farmers. Rural Americans are incredibly resourceful. But it’s another thing to destroy their access to global markets.
The initial trade wars with Canada, Mexico and China have now spilled throughout the entire world. These three countries, Japan and the European Union are tariff targets that so happen to round out our largest five agriculture markets.
Though exports make up 20% of U.S. agricultural production, the farm lobby and key food production groups have raised concerns that inevitable foreign retaliation will erode market share and curtail supply chains.
In addition, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development disrupted $2 billion in aid, including USAID’s Food for Peace Program. American farmers who provided $500 million in global food assistance to combat hunger in turn received more than $700 million from the program in 2023 alone.
As it stands today, this is yet another self-inflicted shuttering of critical international markets.
The first Trump administration ran a less aggressive protectionist playbook and agriculture suffered. The disruptions were so severe that the administration compensated farmers more than $25 billion.
This time around will likely be much worse for farmers: The tariff responses will be more aggressive at a time where inflation is still high and major American crops prices have plummeted.
Despite the bleak outlook in Washington, there are bipartisan opportunities to help walk back rural communities from the abyss:
- First, with USAID torn apart, Congress should move the Food for Peace Program to USDA, as highlighted by proposed legislation from Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pennsylvania. However, the legislation should account for more robust staffing and rural expertise for accountability.
- Second, the House and Senate should immediately pass the Trade Review Act, bipartisan legislation to halt the tariff blitz and establish a clear process for congressional review of new tariffs imposed by the president. If Congress fails, states should consider following California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lead to push for state-specific tariff exemptions, where possible, with key trading partners and expand state services to rural communities.
- Third, Congress should include a tariff relief package for rural communities in its Farm Bill reauthorization. Lawmakers should build on USDA’s bailout in March, inject billions more in the Commodity Credit Corporation for farm aid, deepen investments in livestock vaccine distribution, and push for more agricultural research and development with public universities to give farmers more tools to compete.
Farmers and rural Americans don’t want government handouts. They want predictable markets and reliable opportunities to provide for their families and communities. This uncertainty isn’t just an oppressive burden on rural communities. It’s an existential threat to our hardworking farmers’ livelihoods.
Rather than make America first, the Trump administration has chaotically pushed for government disinvestments and a global trade war that put rural America – and my family ‒ last.
Jeff Le is managing principal at 100 Mile Strategies LLC and a visiting fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute. From 2015 to 2019, Jeff was deputy Cabinet secretary to former California Gov. Jerry Brown, responsible for the agriculture and emerging technology portfolios for the state. His family has owned and operated an organic poultry farm for the past 25 years in Georgia.