What a Trump or Harris Presidency Will Mean for Farmers and Eaters

The American presidential campaign to many feels existential. The candidate who wins will guide (at minimum) the next four years of fiscal and social policy in the US, with reverberations across the globe. 

And there are distinct differences in how a President Kamala Harris would govern for the farmers, eaters, and workers in the United States than a President Donald Trump would. Just how different? We looked at their past actions and stated policy goals to learn more. 

The Landscape for Farmers Under Harris 

Vice President Harris’s track record on agriculture can be traced from her time as a California attorney general and US senator to her time as Biden’s second in command. 

As attorney general in California, she appealed a federal ruling that nixed California’s foie gras ban, and defended California’s law requiring humane, free-range facilities at egg farms. 

While Harris hasn’t formally outlined any agricultural policy plans for voters yet, Jonathan W. Coppess, former administrator of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency and current associate professor and director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program at University of Illinois, forecasts very little change from the current status quo for farmers and farming policy under Biden. 

“There are no indications that a Harris administration will deviate from the Biden administration on agriculture or trade,” says Coppess. “Also, it’s important to keep in mind that presidents only have so much power. The bulk of farm policy is controlled at the congressional level, so the president can only have a limited role in planning what will ultimately end up in a farm bill.”

According to many measures, farmers have been higher on the hog under Biden than Trump. Net farm income hit $165 billion between 2021 and 2023, compared with $94 billion between 2017 and 2019. 

The administration also provided $56 billion to American farmers in direct payments.

The Landscape for Farmers Under Trump

Farmers and ranchers in the US appear poised to back Trump for president, according to a poll commissioned by Agri-Pulse and a survey conducted by Reuters. While both of those studies were conducted before Harris entered the race, they are unlikely to change, says Ferd Hoefner, founding policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and consultant on farm, food, and environmental policy.

“You’ve got this strange dichotomy where he polls well in the farming community, but yet they all live in mortal fear of a trade war,” says Hoefner. “When Trump was in office (farmers) lost billions because of the trade war he started with China, but he essentially paid them off because he knew it was politically expedient to do so. They think he’ll do the same thing again, but I don’t think that’s logical.”

Trump, indeed, shelled out $32 billion to farmers in 2020, and, over his entire presidency, he spent at least $61 billion on bailouts to compensate ag companies for the cost of the trade war he started. 

If Trump is elected, he has proposed another round of punishing tariffs: a baseline of 10 percent on all imported goods and a 60-percent tariff on all Chinese imports. This would constitute the highest and broadest tariffs imposed in the US since World War II, and it would result, Goldman Sachs projects, in a rise in inflation of 1.1 percentage points and a reduction in GDP growth by a half point, not to mention five additional Fed rate hikes. 

“Agriculture is very export dependent,” says Hoefner. “Farmers should think long and hard about which candidate they decide to support and what the implications of each candidate’s past and stated plans might mean for them.”

The Landscape for Eaters Under Harris 

Food prices have spiked 25 percent between 2019 and 2023, and price inflation at restaurants has been even higher. There are more than 44 million Americans currently facing hunger. One in five children doesn’t have enough to eat or access to healthy food, making food assistance programs a hot political topic that inspires now-familiar partisan rhetoric.

“Harris hasn’t forecast that much on what she would do as president, but her past actions indicate that she may be more active on consumer issues than Biden,” says Hoefner. 

During her entire political tenure, Harris has advocated for improving food security and nutrition for all Americans, but especially low-income families and children. During COVID, she introduced two pieces of legislation that aimed to help eaters and producers.

She co-sponsored the Food Donation Improvement Act as California senator. The act was designed to encourage food donations by nixing liabilities for people willing to contribute. Harris also boosted the state’s Farm to School program, helping both farmers and children, and increased food assistance programs across the board. 

The Closing the Meal Gap Act of 2020 expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for all who needed it. The FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act granted the feds the power to team up with small restaurants and non-profits on meals for people in need. 

The Landscape for Eaters Under Trump

If Trump’s promised tariffs go into effect, there will likely be retaliatory tariffs imposed on American goods, including food, which could cause a cavalcade of effects. 

His immigration policy could also cause a variety of challenges that would trickle down to workers, says Coppess. 

“It’s a giant unknown if what he’s saying will actually be pushed through, but a significant portion of the agricultural labor force is immigrant labor,” says Coppess. 

Labor costs currently comprise about 15 percent of a farmer’s costs, and that number is on the rise, according to the USDA. Almost half of the labor force on farms is undocumented. If many of those workers are deported, without a ready and willing supply of hands, the price of food will likely continue to surge. 

Under his previous administration, Trump sought to cut SNAP benefits by $180 billion, or close to 30 percent. There was also a $50-million proposed cut that would have limited student access to free or lower-cost meals at schools. 

Project 2025, a 900+ page manifesto-cum-wish list for Trump’s next term drafted by a coalition of more than 100 conservative organizations—from which Trump has distanced himself, despite his deep ties to many of its creators—includes a plan to divide the farm bill.

The notoriously unwieldy farm bill typically pairs policies backed by red-leaning rural farming communities (i.e., farm subsidies) and blue-leaning cities (food aid programs such as SNAP), and allows both parties to negotiate a piece of the action. Project 2025 would bifurcate the bill and slash spending on farm-friendly programs such as Agriculture Risk Coverage, Price Loss Coverage and crop insurance, while also targeting SNAP and school meals. 

The Landscape for Workers Under Harris 

Trump may have farmers’ votes, but farm workers seem to be backing Harris. United Farm Workers officially endorsed Harris shortly after news broke that Biden was stepping down. They applauded the Biden-Harris administration for championing unionization efforts for farm workers, helping undocumented workers secure COVID vaccines, and increasing legal protections in the industry. 

“Since the very beginning of her career in California—the nation’s largest agricultural producer—Kamala Harris has proven herself a loyal friend of all working people,” said United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero in a statement. 

Hoefner argues that in addition to promoting fairer competition and lower food costs and aiming to correct previous wrongs committed against farmers of color, the mood changed at the USDA. 

“I am regularly in touch with a variety of people at the USDA, and I can say that, under Biden, there was a huge morale boost,” says Hoefner. “People felt once again that they were able to address climate change and workers’ issues. They felt like the work they were doing is worthwhile.”

The Landscape for Workers Under Trump 

Under Trump’s guidance, the USDA delivered more direct aid to farmers than any prior administration. During the COVID pandemic, almost half of farmers’ incomes were coming from the feds. But these payments mainly helped larger conglomerates, not smaller farmers. 

About two-thirds of the aid went to the largest 10 percent of recipients. (The average payment for the top tenth was $164,813, versus the average payment of $2,469.49 for the bottom half.)

Under Trump’s guidance, the USDA also put the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration under the control of the Agricultural Marketing Service, which critics said weakened oversight.

“What little is left of commodity and farm support will completely disappear under a second Trump administration,” Hoefner predicts. “And while it hasn’t gotten much better under Biden, it could potentially get much worse.”

Potential Wild Cards 

“Who they pick for the secretary of agriculture will tell us a lot,” says Coppess. “With Trump, it was one of the last cabinet positions he filled. And we don’t know who he’ll pick this time. Strong contenders are Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, who is right of Attila the Hun and would be the MAGA pick, or Kip Tom, an Indiana farmer who served as US ambassador to the U.N. under his previous administration, and would be more of the center pick.”

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a vocal critic of benefits programs, has also thrown his hat in the ring, adds Coppess. 

On the Harris side, Coppess floats two potentials: Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and Xochitl Torres Small, the current US deputy secretary of agriculture. 

“I think they’d both do a good job, and [they] have expertise that would balance business and farm interest,” says Coppess. “Karen works in California now, but she’s a Nebraska farm girl, so she has Midwest cred, and Xochitl and Tom [Vilsack, US secretary of agriculture under Biden] are both seen as balancing farm and business interests.”

Even with all of the evidence and policy projections in the world, there are plenty of wild cards, no matter who wins.

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