Over the last few months, we have published stories about the agricultural trade deficit which has reached record levels.

To make a very long and somewhat complicated story short, we now import more food, from a dollars and cents perspective, than we are selling and sending out of the country.

At this point in time, we are projected to be in the hole by about $32 billion this year. “Unbelievable!” you might say, but we have faced ag deficits in four of the last six years and never at the amount we are seeing now.

Agriculture has traditionally been immune to the trade deficit disease. But the tide has changed.

My point to all this is, for my entire life, I have lived and worked in rural Kentucky around the greatest farms anywhere. But slowly over the years, I have watched many of them turned into business or residential developments and taken out of agricultural production altogether.

A strong U.S. dollar and increasing competition are making our products have a difficult time finding willing buyers around the world, in turn pushing national commodity prices to multi-year lows. Farm families already know that and feel the pinch when it comes to their bottom lines.

A growing trade deficit is indicative of a weakening farm economy that could ultimately send many more farms out of business, leaving us more dependent on other countries to feed us. If our farmers go out of business, it affects us all.

There are a lot of reasons for this but, at the end of the day, we are in uncharted waters. I don’t profess to know all there is to know about this situation, but I have spoken to many people who do and the news is not good, at least at this point in time.

However, our agriculture industry is one of resiliency with hard-working farm families keeping the faith. This predicament can be resolved but it will take time, patience, and persistence.

Getting a Farm Bill passed by the federal government sooner rather than later would be a big help. There are programs within this critical piece of legislation that will get us moving in the right direction in looking for new international customers for our ag commodities.

Kicking the can down the road when it comes to passage of such an important bill only prolongs the ability to move this and other ag-related challenges in a better direction.

I place the hard-working American farmers who feed us in the same category along with our other most essential workers. We simply cannot do without them.

I don’t say any of this to alarm you but to energize you and help you to understand the situation at hand. There’s nothing we can’t fix in this country, so let’s do whatever it takes to change this situation, once and for all, if we want to continue to see our essential farms thriving and productive.

Scan the QR code to see a detailed explanation of the trade deficit from our friends at the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Eddie Melton, President
Kentucky Farm Bureau