Can Trump administration help Wyoming agriculture?

CHEYENNE – The U.S. Department of Agriculture in the administration of President Donald Trump could be very good for farms and ranches in the Cowboy State, a Wyoming official said recently.

Commodity prices in the agriculture sector have put Wyoming farmers and ranchers in difficult positions in the last several years. Following a period of “prolonged, extraordinary profits where commodity markets had only been rising in 2013,” that’s not been the case in the last four or five years, said Nathan Kauffman, a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City executive with expertise in agriculture.

Kauffman held a presentation during a May 8 meeting in Cheyenne, where he gave his take on the overarching picture of the agriculture sector in Wyoming and other rural states.

It’s something that Wyoming Department of Agriculture Director Doug Miyamoto has seen on the ground in communities across the state. It’s hard to plan for the future, he said, when prices are low.

“We’ve had our struggles in the ag sector, just like other states have,” Miyamoto said in a May 18 interview. “The underlying problem, our most severe problem, probably, is our grain prices have not been good for quite some time now. And that hurts all of our growers, obviously. We have a little more certainty in livestock markets. They’re doing OK, but not fantastic.”

And while positive trends in the economy overall will likely spill over to some degree into rural states’ agriculture sectors, Kauffman said workforce issues continue to be an area of concern for Wyoming. Many young people in the prime age for working on farms and ranches are leaving Wyoming for opportunities in other states with more stable economies. Owners of agricultural operations are aging, and the younger generations that in the past would have taken over the business have, in many cases, also left Wyoming.

“I think if you look at statements made by my boss, Gov. (Matt) Mead, he iterates the same thing a lot: in Wyoming, we’ve got to stop exporting our most valuable asset, and that’s our youth,” Miyamoto said. “That’s across the boundaries of whatever industry you’re talking about for all of the state. We need to concentrate on keeping our talent here. That’s true in agriculture as well.”

Facing those challenges, Miyamoto said it was an encouraging sign from Washington, D.C., when U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue visited Cheyenne on May 16.

To the knowledge of Miyamoto and his counterparts, it was the first time a USDA administrator had visited Wyoming.

If there’s economic incentive that will keep young people in the agriculture sector in Wyoming, Perdue said they’ll prefer to stay.

Providing that opportunity in Wyoming, Perdue said, comes down to exports.

When news came earlier this year that Trump planned to impose new trade tariffs, there was some anxiety among those in Wyoming’s agriculture sector over possible detrimental effects that could come from trade disputes. But part of the president’s trade negotiations, Perdue said, is to call on China to double their purchase of agriculture goods from the U.S. in the next two years. The goal in the long game, he said, is to make sure those exports mean profits in agriculture sectors in states like Wyoming.

“That’s another $20-$40 billion, which would put a lot of profitability in the ag sector,” he said. “There’s obviously going to be some discomfort until we get those kinds of things agreed to, but the president understands that sales, exports, are really the key to the American farm’s future, and that’s what we’re focused on getting done.”

The Trump administration’s policies appear to be on track to helping Wyoming agriculture producers, Miyamoto said. Just the fact Perdue came and listened to the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association members and Miyamoto earlier this month illustrated a willingness to have a dialogue past administrations have not, he said.

“When you ask the question, ‘Do you think this administration and its policies can improve Wyoming agriculture?’ Well, by the tangible metrics we have to measure so far, I would say so,” Miyamoto said. “We are having more access to leadership in order to discuss the issues that Wyoming faces when it comes to federal grazing policies on Forest Service lands with the USDA or other topics; having access is your primary challenge. Once you can have that open dialogue, you have the opportunity to come up with common solutions.”

If Wyoming and other U.S. agriculture producers are able to access markets in an ideal way, no other producer on the international stage would be able to compete with American farmers and ranchers, Perdue said. And when Miyamoto looks at the challenges faced now in the state, he said he’s ultimately not very worried. The agricultural sector, Miyamoto said, has faced headwinds down in the past, and he’s confident it will prevail in the future, as it did before.

“It’s an industry that’s already proven itself to be sustainable,” he said. “I do think it can sustain itself through the challenges today.”