May 20, 2025 / 11:32 AM CDT
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Kansas farmers are prepping for the upcoming harvest season under a lot of uncertainty following back-and-forth negotiations over tariffs.
Monday, May 19, marks one week since the Trump administration and China announced a 90-day pause of tariffs, with a 115% cut in tariffs and levies across the board.
27 News met up with a member of the Kansas Wheat Commission and the Soybean Association to see how reciprocal tariffs impact two of the biggest crop exports in the state.
Andy Winsor has over 3 decades of experience as a Kansas Farmer. He says it’s been a tough AG economy, even before tariff talks began.
“We’ve just been facing a lot of uncertainty with planning this 2025 crop,” Winsor said. “With the tariffs lowering the value of the grain we produce and the other products we produce, we’re also facing higher costs of the seeds and fertilizers that we bring in from other countries.”
Half of the soybean and wheat crops in Kansas stay in the country, while the other half is exported around the world. After years of drought conditions impacting wheat, now is a pivotal time for farmers.
“We’re starting just now to receive more interest and trying to regain some of that market share that we’ve lost in the last couple of years,” Kansas Wheat Commission CEO, Justin Gilpin said. “It’ll be an important time for those export markets to get that other half of the Kansas wheat crop either down to Mexico by direct rail or on a vessel to our overseas customers.”
With talks of tariffs against trade partners around the globe, farmers have more difficulty planning their next steps.
“It’s hard to change a lot of things that we do on a very short timeframe,” Winsor said, “we’re planning out months and years ahead for crops, so we can’t really change our crop practices on a dime.”
China is the largest buyer of soybeans, even after changes made by the first Trump administration.
“China has not come back and bought from us like they did prior to the 2018 tariffs,” Winsor said. “They’re still not back to near the levels they were before that.”
Winsor says that it has had an impact on grain prices for the past 7 years, and it’s pushed other countries to invest in farm infrastructure outside of the U.S.
Heading into the upcoming harvest season, both wheat and soybean producers are hoping for better trade relations.
“What our farmers really want is fair trade,” Gilpin said. “We want to have trading partners but we want to be able to be trading into a fair market and fair relationships. I think that’s part of the process we’re going through right now.”
Soybeans are being planted right now with harvest season set for the fall, while wheat farmers kick off their harvest season around the first week of June.
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