By Julie Ingwersen and Karl Plume
GLENDALE, Kentucky (Reuters) – Kentucky farmer Drew Langley got an early start planting soybeans this spring, hoping to boost yields to help soothe the sting of slumping prices after U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China put demand from the world’s top importer in doubt.
Then the rains came.
Up to 15 inches fell on farms along the southeastern edge of the U.S. Midwest farm belt from April 2-6, flooding Langley’s fields and swamping thousands of acres across the rolling hills of the Bluegrass State where farmers contribute a small but meaningful portion of the nation’s soybean, corn and winter wheat crops. Grain elevators on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, which mark Kentucky’s northern and western borders, offer farmers there access to the nation’s largest export outlet at the Gulf Coast.
The one-two punch of historic floods amid a damaging trade war comes at a challenging moment for farmers in Kentucky, where planting delays are costing them precious time in a year when low prices leave them little margin for error as they struggle to remain profitable.
Farmers across the country are facing similar dilemmas as planting is under way and growers face last-minute decisions about what to plant as global agricultural markets have been upended by tariffs and trade uncertainty.
Nearly 65% of deep red Kentucky’s voters cast ballots for Trump last November, up 3 points from four years earlier, and many farmers, a core constituency for the president, remain supportive of his policy goals.
“We are antsy and we are ready to get going,” Langley said as he gazed across the flooded landscape of his Glendale-area fields that would normally be half-planted by mid-April.
“I am itchy to get more of my beans in the ground,” he said.
The U.S. trade war with China, the world’s biggest soybean buyer, has diminished export prospects for U.S. soybeans, the nation’s top farm export by value, restricting farmers’ ability to make a profit in 2025. Soybean exports to China never fully recovered after a U.S.-China trade war during Trump’s first term, but some relief may be on the way. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he would be “very nice” in negotiations with China, and that tariffs on imports from the country would fall significantly following a deal, but not to zero.
Just 12% of Kentucky’s corn crop was planted as of Sunday, well below the 23% seeded by this time on average, according to the USDA. Soybean plantings stood at 7%, compared with 9% on average.
TIMING IS CRITICAL
Flooding across the Ohio River Valley, which spans far southern Illinois to western Pennsylvania, hit farmers particularly hard in western Kentucky, where many follow a highly coordinated rotation of corn, winter wheat and so-called “double crop” soybeans that allows them to grow three crops in two years on the same fields.
The timing of each phase is critical, and this spring’s flooding has forced farmers to spend time filling in ditches, repairing furrows hammered by flood runoff, clearing fallen trees and branches – leaving fewer days for planting corn.
Farmers here, along with others across the United States, had hoped to add corn acres this year as their best chance for profits in a tough farm economy due in part to Trump’s disruptive trade war.
Kentucky farmers intend to plant 17% more corn acres this year while slashing soybean seedings by 10%, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its latest forecast, which was based on a survey of 73,700 farmers conducted during the first two weeks of March.
The state’s projected plantings shift is more drastic than farmers nationwide, with total U.S. corn acreage seen up 5% in 2025 while soybean seedings were expected to fall 4%, according to the USDA. Grower returns for corn are expected to be better than soybeans this year.
Depending on how soon the floodwaters retreat, Kentucky farmers might have to switch some corn acres to soybeans, which can be planted later in the spring.
Although Kentucky farmers grew just 1.5% of U.S. corn and 2.2% of soybean supplies last year, their crops, and those from the flooded Ohio River Valley, represent crucial flows for exporters that draw from supplies loaded on river barges bound for Gulf Coast terminals.
Hodgenville-area farmer Ryan Bivens slowly drove across a flooded road to survey one of his waterlogged fields, his red truck leaving a small wake in murky water still standing on the area’s saturated red clay soils.
Bivens, 46, a first-generation farmer and newly sworn-in state lawmaker, should be spending the first weeks of April planting corn and soybeans and readying equipment to harvest his once-promising winter wheat crop.
“I estimated first that we probably lost 200 to 300 acres of wheat out of the 2,600 that we have got planted,” he said in an interview near one of his machine sheds.
“I’m mighty afraid I am probably low.”
‘WE DON’T HAVE ANY ROOM TO GIVE’
At Micah Lester’s 7,000-acre farm near Cadiz, Kentucky, 15% of his fields remained unplantable nearly two weeks after three days of storms dumped 14 inches of rain on his once-tidy rows of winter wheat and rye, a cover crop on fields where he intended to plant corn.
Lester hopes that Washington’s trade war will eventually lead to better crop prices. But if his fields remain waterlogged into May, Lester fears he will have to shift acres earmarked for corn to soybeans despite demand concerns stemming from Trump’s tariffs on China.
“I’m optimistic but also very nervous. It’s not like we are in a great ag economy. We don’t have any room to give,” he said in an office behind his house. Just outside, his crews moved huge planters and other equipment into place to start seeding corn.
A few miles away, farmer Barry Alexander has spent hundreds of dollars per acre on labor to clear corn fields of debris after heavy flooding. Alexander said that some of the fields on his 13,000-acre farm may be unsuitable for planting this spring.
He has circled May 5 on his calendar. That’s the day he will begin to seriously consider shifting corn acres to soybeans.
To what level global markets remain open to either crop amid Trump’s aggressive trade policies remains unclear. China has already slapped a 125% duty on U.S. goods in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, effectively halting its imports of American farm products. Other nations facing Trump’s tariffs are weighing their responses.
Soybean and corn farmer Langley remains optimistic that Trump’s policies will yield a trade deal that would lift soybean prices well above their current $10-a-bushel levels.
If soybeans continued to fetch $10 per bushel, Langley said, “we can live to fight another day.”
If as a result of the trade war prices fall, however, “then you can say, ‘well, Drew has got an auction sign in his yard,’” Langley said.
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen in western Kentucky and Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Emily Schmall and Anna Driver)
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