Trump-backing farmer says agriculture policy failed: 'We've been sold a bill of goods'

Matt Bell has spent thirty-four years coaxing crops from the red clay of central North Carolina. He grows soybeans, corn, and wheat across more than a thousand acres, raises beef cattle, and until recently believed the policies of the president he voted for would protect his way of life. Now, at fifty-two, he is rationing what he once took for granted and wondering if he can stay in farming at all.

The arithmetic has become brutal. Diesel fuel, which powers every piece of equipment on his farm, has nearly doubled in price over the past year. Nationally, diesel now averages $6.40 per gallon; in North Carolina, it briefly hit $6.19. Bell's combine alone consumes about six hundred dollars' worth of fuel per day—more than twice what he paid twelve months ago. He budgeted thirty-five thousand dollars for fuel this year. By August, that money was gone. He now expects to spend between fifty and sixty thousand before the year ends. The prices shift so rapidly that a quote from his fuel distributor in the morning becomes obsolete by afternoon.

The war with Iran has fractured global oil markets. The Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carry critical fuel supplies, remains under naval blockade with only a limited number of vessels permitted passage. Houthi rebels backed by Iran attack shipping in the Red Sea. Iranian proxy forces strike Saudi infrastructure. Fighting in Russia and Ukraine has further constrained oil refining capacity. The result is a cascade of costs that reaches down to a single farmer's equipment shed in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

But fuel is only part of the squeeze. President Trump's tariffs have raised the cost of fertilizer, chemicals, seed, and equipment parts—essentially everything Bell needs to grow a crop. China, in retaliation for the administration's tariffs, imposed a ten percent levy on American soybeans. The American Soybean Association has written to the president asking him to eliminate it. The problem, from Bell's perspective, is straightforward: his input costs have climbed while the prices China pays for his soybeans have not. He is caught between rising expenses and stagnant revenue.

Bell initially supported Trump's policies. He even accepted that short-term price increases from the Iran conflict might be justified if they prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But he has grown skeptical of the administration's judgment. "We're just being strung along as a country," he said in an interview at his farm on a Wednesday in September. "I think we've been misled." The agriculture policy he was promised—one that would place farmers first—has not materialized. The bailout program the administration offered, he said, amounts to far less than the crisis demands.

Bell has already made changes that would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago. He is shifting which acres he plants. He is stretching the lifespan of his equipment rather than replacing it. He and his family have opened a pumpkin patch and hayride operation in the fall, a diversification born of necessity. "We've cut everything we can cut," he said. "The last several years in agriculture have been terrible." But there is a limit to what can be eliminated. A farm cannot run without fuel. It cannot run without fertilizer. These are not luxuries to be trimmed.

Bell knows farmers who have already quit. Some have been forced out of business entirely, unable to sustain operations under the weight of these costs. He acknowledges that he could be next. "I can't stay in business under these conditions," he said. "Something has got to give." When asked what he would do if farming were no longer possible, he hesitated. "I don't know," he said. "It's all I've ever done."

This November, Bell will vote differently than he did two years ago. He describes himself as a Republican, but he plans to split his ticket, voting for candidates he believes have common sense and will listen to farmers' concerns. He does not want Americans to pity farmers. He wants them to be angry. "We are fighting for survival," he said, "and we're running out of options."