What Does Trump’s Win Mean for Agriculture?

Nov 08, 2024

By Brad Stotler

Election 2024 Rundown

Donald Trump stunned political observers on November 5 with an overwhelming victory. The former President reversed results from the 2020 election by winning all seven of the key battleground states, including the so-called “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. While Kamala Harris underperformed with certain voter demographics, Trump expanded his overall support and is on track to win the popular vote by a significant margin.

What does Trump’s victory mean for farmers and the issues they face in the current marketplace?

Initially, we all need to watch who Trump puts into his cabinet to oversee the departments of agriculture, trade and energy. Particularly for agriculture, will Trump select a more traditional secretary that is familiar to the industry or someone who is an outside-the-box choice like a Robert Kennedy Jr.? This decision will greatly impact agriculture policy during his administration. On the trade front, expect similar policies as we saw in Trump’s first administration, when he challenged norms and pursued bi-lateral trade agreements. As for energy, on the campaign trail Trump spoke frequently about maximizing the U.S.’s energy production capabilities, driving down fuel prices for consumers and reversing policies like mandates on electric vehicles. Expect that to be a focus during his first 100 days in office, along with looking to address immigration policy and the southern border.

In Congress, the Republicans took control of the Senate, and we are waiting to see if they retain control of the House of Representatives. In addition to potential focus on energy and immigration policy in the first 100 days, Congress will also be looking to address tax policy in 2025. As for prospects of the Farm Bill, we’ll need to watch who ends up with control of the House. Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress will change the calculation on Fam Bill negotiations and the likelihood of a clean extension for 1 or 2 years, or a bill with policy changes. Either way, we retain advocates for Illinois agriculture in Congress on both sides of the aisle. All incumbents in our delegation won their election, including House Agriculture Committee members Rep. Eric Sorensen and Nikki Budzinski who won competitive races. Also worth noting, the sponsor of the Next Generation Fuels Act, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) has declared victory in her election; however, the race is not officially called yet. The vote totals are Miller-Meeks has 203,899 votes, and challenger Christina Bohannon has 203,486 votes.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”