After a year of economic uncertainty, Black farmers look to the future : NPR

NEW ORLEANS – James Davis has had the best year of his farming career.

A third-generation row crop farmer, Black estimates he harvested nearly 1,300 pounds of cotton, an average of 50 bushels of soybeans and an average of about 155 bushels of corn on his 2,500 acres of farmland in northeast Louisiana.

But as US commodities face high retaliatory tariffs Abroad, he says he and many other farmers can't sell enough of their crops to cover the loans they take out to finance the growing season.

The tariffs, Davis said, make survival nearly impossible.

“To have a harvest like this and not be able to pay all your bills shows that something is wrong in the agricultural industry,” Davis said.

To plan for next year, farmers need help now, Davis said. In a recent meeting with its banker, the bank projected revenues for 2026 to support crop loans, but the cash flow math didn't add up—the farm's expected income was not enough to cover operating loans after factoring in production costs, equipment costs, land rent and insurance premiums.

The Trump administration announced just this week new $12 billion package one-time milestone payments to American farmers like Davis to help them recover from temporary market disruptions and high production costs.

“This assistance will provide much-needed certainty as they get this year's harvest to market and look forward to next year's harvest,” Trump said during a White House roundtable. “This will help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families.”

Davis says that help can't come soon enough.

“Without financial assistance, it's hard to make farm loans work on paper,” he told NPR on Monday.

However, at the same time, the Trump administration dismantled decades-old USDA programs designed to help black farmers by eliminating “socially disadvantaged” status, including programs such as Program 2501which many Black row crop farmers rely on to access credit, technical assistance, and conservation support that is otherwise difficult to obtain at county-level USDA offices. The USDA did not respond to requests for interviews or comment.

Experts say the support was intended to help small farmers and farmers of color stay on the land.

Long-awaited relief may not come in time

Farm Bridge Assistance Program is up to $11 billion from the recently announced package and offers prorated payments to farmers growing staples, including row crops such as soybeans, corn and cotton.

Payments are expected to begin February next year and are designed to compensate for the losses of the 2025 harvest.

For many farmers this will not be enough. While the interim payment may help with crop loans, many will have immediate bills to pay in the coming weeks.

“Honestly, it should show up like Santa Claus under the Christmas tree,” said P.J. Haney, a fifth-generation black farmer with rice operations in Virginia and Arkansas and chairman National Council of Black Manufacturerswhich gathered in New Orleans this week for its annual conference.

“Our landlords want their money by the end of the year – our seed and input companies and chemicals and equipment companies have until the end of the year to pay,” he said.

Some farmers may have relationships with bankers and companies that will work with them and extend payment terms by several months, while others may not, Haney said. Farmers are grateful for any support they receive, but Haney says one-time milestone payments are not enough.

“They still won't make us whole because of the losses we've suffered through markets, tariffs and trade,” he said. “But every dollar helps.”

Farmers are already facing challenges such as unpredictable weather, pests and stagnant commodity prices, as well as rising input costs, including procurement of machinery and fertilizers. “We sit down and pray,” as Haney puts it. Tariffs have only made these problems worse.

Black farmers face additional challenges

Black farmers like Haney and Davis make up less than 2% of all U.S. farmers, and Black row crop farmers like those attending this week's conference make up an even smaller portion of that number.

“Our herd is small,” Haney said, “and if we can protect the herd, it will grow.”

Black farmers have been asking the federal government for loan relief and other assistance for decades. A century ago, black farmers owned at least 16 million acres land. Today Haney said they have about 2 million.

After the Civil War, black Americans were promised “40 acres and a mule» by the federal government, but many say that promise has never materialized.

Over the past 100 years, the amount of farmland owned by blacks has declined by 90%. according to Data for Progressdue to higher rates of loan and credit refusals, lack of legal and industry support, and “overt acts of violence and intimidation”.

Advocates say the failure of black farmers to get started and the subsequent sharp decline in the farm population is due in part to what they call discriminatory lending practices by the USDA, as well as the often bias of specific loan officers. The agency is the subject of an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging discrimination by Black farmers and additional litigation related to these and other allegations.

Much of this story has to do with how black farmers feel about the Trump administration.

“Black’s row crop farming community needs the administration’s support,” Haney said. “I can't… buy an $800,000 combine to sell corn for $4.

According to him, all farmers – “black or white” – respond to the same low prices. But black farmers, he argues, are already small percentage All U.S. manufacturers, often operating at smaller scales, have less cushion to absorb sudden market shocks.

As farmers weigh their projected costs next year, economists say they also face deep uncertainty in global markets.

“I think a lot of farmers are still looking at next year with some trepidation, thinking that their profits will continue to be very, very low,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.

U.S. trade with China, historically the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans and other row crops, has not recovered to pre-trade war levels despite the new agreement. Meanwhile, countries like Brazil have dramatically increased production, capturing market share during the trade war to become the world's largest soybean exporter, a long-term structural shift that U.S. producers now have to compete with, Glauber said.

He added that crops grown in the Mississippi River Delta, such as cotton and soybeans, have been particularly hard hit by low prices and retaliatory tariffs.

Finis Stribling III grows 800 acres of cotton, rice, corn, soybeans and wheat in Arkansas and Tennessee. At the National Council of Black Manufacturers conference, he told NPR that 2025 will be another year of what he calls “scarcity agriculture.”

“We used to have too much rain and then drought,” he said. “And when you finally get the crop in the field, the price support is not strong enough to cover the cost of production.”

Sitting next to him during a lunch break at the conference, another Arkansas row crop farmer, John Lee II, said bluntly: “I'm worried about next year. What should we do in 2026 when we go to the bank to try to get a loan? I'm worried about going to the bank next year and not being able to get a loan because we won't be able to keep the cash flow on the loan.”

Both also said the new tariff breaks would help, but not nearly as much as many outside agriculture think.

“From the non-agriculture community, you're saying $12 billion seems like a lot of money,” Stribling said. “But if you look at the cost of production and the money spent on agriculture, $12 billion is really just a drop in the ocean. It's almost like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.”