The Trump Administration’s trade war with China comes at a very bad time for Kentucky pork producers. That’s according to Eric Heard, a fourth-generation farmer whose family owns farms in Warren, Butler and Logan counties that turn out 72-thousand head a year. Chinese importers recently cancelled U.S. orders of more than 12-thousand metric tons of pork.
“Traditionally, our summertime highs are always the point where we actually get to make a profit. It's usually, that’s where you'll have June, July and August, you'll have the highest prices of the year for hogs, and this is coming at the worst time, you know, to drive the market down during those summer months.”
China also cancelled U.S. soybean orders totalling 1,800 tons. Heard says other challenges for farmers predate the Trump Administration’s trade war, with inflation one of the biggest.
“Insurance, fuel, fertilize, everything. I mean, with us being from seed to plate type deal, from going through those hogs and cattle, we feel it even greater, I feel like, than somebody that's just in the hog business, or somebody that's just purely in the grain side.”
Heard, whose farms also grow 4,000 acres of soybeans, says livestock producers are also hurt by the lack of the type of insurance offered to grain farmers through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency.
