As Tennessee soybean farmers harvest their crop after a difficult growing season, they are facing a farm economy that resembles “death by a thousand cuts,” Tennessee Soybean Promotion Council Executive Director Stefan Maupin said.
Persistent inflation since the pandemic has made it more expensive for farmers to produce crops, and weather extremes over the last year mean they will see a significant loss in yield, he said.
On top of that, bushels will soon hit a market where prices are low and Tennessee’s largest soybean export partner, China, is entirely absent amid trade negotiations with the Trump Administration.
“We’re in a significant and desperate situation where … none of the crops that farmers grow right now return a profit,” Maupin said. “They don’t even break even.”
Another year in the red will be tough to survive for farmers still struggling to recover from last year’s losses, he added.
Soybeans are Tennessee’s most prominent row crop, logging more than $990 million in cash receipts in 2023. Tennessee farmers planted around 1.75 million acres of soybeans in 2025, mostly in West and Middle Tennessee.
Soybeans also topped the state’s commodity exports in 2023, bringing in $489.4 million, followed by cotton at $302.7 million. Soybean meal came in fourth with $129.6 million in export earnings, according to United States Department of Agriculture data.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January and began imposing tariffs on imported goods — including Chinese imports — China has answered with its own tariffs on U.S. goods. China began boycotting the purchase of U.S. soybeans in May, according to the New York Times, turning instead to crops from Brazil and other South American countries.
American Soybean Association President Caleb Ragland urged Trump in an August 19 letter to reach a deal with China to remove retaliatory tariffs and secure soybean purchase commitments.
“U.S. soybean farmers cannot survive a prolonged trade dispute with our largest customer,” Ragland wrote.
The American Soybean Association points to losses farmers experienced during trade tensions between China and the U.S. in 2018. Soybean farmers in the United States lost $9.4 billion that year, according to a USDA estimate.
A University of Tennessee Agriculture Extension study estimates that Tennessee experienced a total economic loss of nearly $40 million due to uncertainty caused by soybean tariffs in 2018, even when considering government payments made to soybean farmers in an effort to offset their loss of income.
Maupin said that Tennessee soybean producers are exporting to other countries, but demand outside of China — where the market is expanding — is not as high.
University of Tennessee estimates soybean losses at $110 million for 2025
Maupin said farmers’ financial strain is evident in the math.
The USDA predicts an average yield of 53.5 bushels per acre for soybeans this year. Maupin said this is likely too high an estimate for Tennessee, where spring storms brought widespread flooding in West Tennessee fields that delayed planting, and the dry weeks that followed starved plants of moisture. Tennessee averaged 47.4 bushels per acre from 2014 to 2024. This year, Maupin has heard some farmers say they’re looking at closer to 30 bushels an acre due to the dry conditions, he said.
Based on an average yield of 50 bushels per acre, farmers are projected to lose about $84 per acre on soybeans as of Aug. 12, according to estimates from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. If a farmer has 3,000 acres, that’s a roughly quarter-million dollar loss.
Estimates may change as costs fluctuate, but prices so far have hovered more than a dollar below UT’s estimated break-even price of $11.72 per bushel. The university’s Aug. 12 report estimates losses of nearly $110 million for Tennessee soybeans this year.
As difficult as conditions are for soybean farmers, Tennessee’s other major row crops — cotton, corn and wheat — are expected to see even higher losses per acre, according to the University of Tennessee. Farm level net losses for the state’s four primary row crops are expected to top $360 million in 2025.
Weather, inflation and tariffs squeeze farmers
Alan Meadows started working on his fifth-generation family farm in Lauderdale County when he graduated from high school about 25 years ago.
“This has been a really tough year for us,” he said.
Lauderdale County was among several West Tennessee counties to suffer flooding in April. Meadows planted his soybeans in late March.
“It started off really good … we were in the field in late March, which is early for us,” he said. “But then the wheels came off, so to speak, pretty quick.”
Before the plants could sprout, a four-day downpour dumped about 13 inches of water on the fields. Some of the crop was lost, and Meadows had to replant. If the crops continued to see some rainfall, that wouldn’t be an issue, he said, “but you know, as luck would have it, we turned out extremely dry this summer.”
Supplies and equipment were more expensive this year, too, Meadows added, due to inflation and import tariffs.
“So much of what has happened and what’s going on here is totally out of our control,” he said.
“We just want a free, fair and open market where we can sell our goods … as competitively as anybody else around the world,” Meadows said. “And we do feel that we produce a superior product here in the United States, and we just need to have the markets.”
Planning for 2026 and searching for relief
Even if a favorable trade deal is reached soon, Maupin said it will likely be too late for Tennessee’s soybean farmers to benefit.
“It will be very difficult to survive this year, and they’re harvesting crops now,” he said.
Farmers pay most bills yearly, after revenue from selling their crops comes in. With projected losses, this means farms will not have money to pay electric bills, house and tractor payments, among other needs, Maupin said.
For those that have enough equity to hold out a little longer, he estimates the tide will need to turn before December, when farmers typically decide what to purchase and plant for the next growing season.
Farmers, like other businesses, depend on financing to cover pre-sale costs.
“Right now this year and looking like going into next year, the crop will not cash flow,” Maupin said, so farmers will likely have to put up something else — their farm, home, vehicles, or anything that holds equity — to secure the loan.
If next year’s harvest returns another loss instead of a profit, they risk losing that collateral.
Those in the toughest position are younger farmers who “have just not had the opportunity to build up their equity in order to survive economic conditions like this,” Maupin said.
Soybean farmers are looking toward other possible uses that may help increase domestic sales. Maupin said biofuels hold potential, and the budget reconciliation bill passed in July included biofuel incentives that could provide a boost for that industry next year.
Farmers will continue to work with some states like California and Washington that are working to put fuel standards in place, but it’s not clear how widespread adoption will be across the country.
Ultimately, Maupin said, farmers will need help from the federal government.
Congress has not passed a new Farm Bill — multiyear legislation that authorizes funding for agricultural and food programs — since 2018. Instead, lawmakers have signed one-year extensions. The American Relief Act of 2025 extended the 2018 Farm Bill’s programs through Sept. 30.
Maupin said without a fresh farm bill, “we do not have a workable safety net program when things like this happen in our economy.”
In the meantime, Maupin acknowledges the mental toll on farmers.
“They have done everything right, they’ve managed their finances well, they have put in a good crop … but they cannot change the weather, they cannot change the economy, they cannot change the markets,” he said. “The weather is in the control of a higher power, and the economy and the markets are in control of Washington, D.C.”
This article was originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.
