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Here in Western North Carolina, when we think “farmer” we think small. Three or four cows make a dairy. Enough chickens to produce a few dozen eggs a day. Two thousand bushels of apples from a family orchard.

But we aren’t the norm in U.S. farming. The average farm size in America is 465 acres. In Western North Carolina, the average is more like 80 acres, mostly hay and pasture.

Each year, America’s average farm size increases, which means that more acres are controlled by fewer people–or corporations.

In the South and Midwest, farms are vast plains of open fields where a single farm might cover more than 2,000 acres, and others might be twice that size.

As you can imagine, that is an expensive business with huge equipment. A single tractor in the big farm belts costs nearly $1 million, and several large pieces of equipment are needed. Fertilizer for a 2,000 acre farm costs about $600,000 per season.

These are multi-million dollar businesses, but even such huge operations will be harmed by the new tariff war, the largest in history. My farmer friends out west tell me they have “nothing to worry about. He will take care of these farmers.”

That is most likely wishful thinking.

The current administration probably will pay those big farmers a “supplement.” For example, it could put in place a guaranteed government payment on top of what they are paid by the markets for their crops. A 2,000-acre soybean farmer who harvests 50 bushels per acre and sells it for $11 per bushel earns $1.1 million. Then the president could create a supplement of $1.00 per bushel, more or less, giving that farmer an additional $100,000 or so. 

Farmers were paid government subsidies of nearly $24 billion eight years ago when a trade war was declared by the U.S., mostly against China. Back then, farmers found the subsidy program convoluted, slow and ineffective. In the end, those tariffs cost American farmers $30 billion in lost exports. About 20 percent of them went bankrupt back then. Far more bankruptcies are likely this time around.

And we all know that the uber wealthy are sitting back waiting for their opportunity to swoop in and gobble up farm land for their portfolio.

But just like before, most of rural America will be happy with the promises for a while. Of course, the massive factory farms are insulated by their corporate structure. Those folks don’t get up at the crack of dawn the way we do here and make their way out to the chicken yard or worry about whether the late frost will wipe out their blueberry crop.

Our little farmers will struggle, perhaps more this year than ever before, to keep their heads above water as they endure another round of increasing expense and decreasing profit and customers. We might be watching the end of days for some of them.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com