Video Transcript: The impact of the international soybean conflict on local New York farmers.
Todd Dumond: It is very difficult right now for an American farmer to pencil a profit.
Moira Vaughan: The math isn’t adding up for soybean farmers like Todd Dumond.
Dumond: The tariffs are impacting us all.
Vaughan: He’s now facing the fallout from international tariffs on soybean exports from the U.S. to China.
Dumond: Before we built this, most of the New York beans were exported, loaded in containers, and sent to China.
Vaughan: The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that China is the top buyer of soybeans from America.
Jon Weatherstone: If you take China and then you add up the next 10 biggest importers of soybeans, they still don’t add up to what China imports.
Vaughan: International tariffs, along with cheaper prices from other countries, have made China choose elsewhere for soybean imports.
Dumond: Six years ago, Brazil produced the same amount of soybeans as the United States did. This year they’re going to double our production.
Vaughan: Now, Todd tells me that workers here they can produce up to 1.5 million pounds of these guys a day. Now, in the month of October alone, that’s about 325 million pounds.
Dumond: Back there is the tallest bin east of the Mississippi.
Vaughan: Todd started a soybean roasting process on Dumond Farms when he became the owner. It creates feed for livestock and biofuel for electricity across the state.
Dumond: This is straight, 100% soybean oil.
Vaughan: Even with revenue from the feed and biofuel, international tariffs have impacted the worth of every soybean.
Dumond: So our inputs are going up, and the value of what we produce is going down.
Jack Klapper: The majority of farmers voted for President Trump.
Vaughan: But farmers like Jack Klapper, who uses Dumond’s feed as a meal for his cows, believe a solution is coming from Donald Trump.
Klapper: He keeps telling us that things are shaking out. You know, he’s going to help us, so we’re hopeful for that.
Vaughan: The trump administration says they are planning an aid package for farmers and a contract deal with China to resume soybean imports from the u-s as of late November; an idea that Todd thinks is the wrong answer.
Dumond: At first glance, $10 to $20 billion being infused into agriculture is a very desirable thing. Any farmer would first and far more prefer a market.
Vaughan: Even as prices for soybean crops are changing, a farmer’s outlook always stays the same.
Klapper: Every single day we go to work, putting on the boots, putting on the hats, you know, just trying to be optimistic about feeding the world every single day.
Vaughan: That positive outlook on farming, rooted in every soybean planted, no matter what the future holds in agriculture. In Cayuga County, Moira Vaughan, NCC News.
CAYUGA COUNTY, NY (NCC News) —Todd Dumond always knew his life would lead him back to farming.
His parents, a teacher and a dentist, originally opened a cattle beef farm in the Adirondacks. A couple of years later, the two realized the soil in Cayuga County would be a stronger revenue source to harvest wheat for their company, Dumond Farms.
“I think at 10 years old, I was driving trucks into the city of Auburn and delivering grains,” said Todd Dumond. “It’s been my lifetime – I lived on the farm as a kid. A few years after school, I came back and made it my career.”
After graduating from MIT with a master’s degree in engineering, Todd became the co-owner of Dumond Farms with his parents, Eric and Marge Dumond, in 2003. He turned his parents’ 600-acre crop-farming business into a 6,000-acre harvesting, processing and trucking company that produces corn and soybeans.
“It’s my passion project,” said Dumond. “The soybean feed market was something that I knew we could break into.”
The soybean roasting process rapidly changed the farm, with a heavy demand in New York State for high-quality soybean feed for livestock farmers, like Jack Klapper, whose family business owns 4,000 cows.
“The cows behind me are eating a lot of soy products, soybean meal in particular,” said Klapper, the owner of Noblehurst Farms. “It’s healthier.”
Todd’s idea to roast and process soybeans provided a cheaper option for New York farmers to buy feed, instead of having to pay shipping prices from Midwest businesses.
“I can truly say we’ve raised the value of every soybean in the state, and provided a better, cheaper feed alternative,” said Klapper.
Before soybean processing and transporting were a part of Dumond Farms and shipped to local New York farmers, most of the soybeans were shipped internationally.
“Before we built this, most of the New York beans were exported, loaded in containers, and sent to China,” said Dumond.
The Trump administration’s tariffs continue to strain exports of soybeans from the U.S. to China, one of America’s biggest soybean buyers.
“It is very difficult right now for an American farmer to pencil a profit in corn or soybeans or even wheat,” said Dumond.
China’s halting of U.S. soybean imports and turning to cheaper alternatives from Argentina and Brazil is a huge loss in income to domestic farmers, according to agricultural price experts.
“If you take China and then you add up the next 10 biggest importers of soybeans, they still don’t add up to what China imports,” said John Weatherstone, grain merchandiser at Dumond Farms. “American farmers need markets and businesses to sell to for profit; China was a huge one.”
The Trump administration recently said they plan to send $12 billion to American farmers affected by the global tariffs, now that the government shutdown is over, as of mid-November. Todd says he believes that is the wrong solution to help farms suffering from the loss of international profit.
“Any farmer would first and far more prefer a market,” said Dumond. “We need a reliable market to sell our harvest.”
Regardless of funding stress, Dumond Farms has its eyes on tackling a separate goal – having a negative carbon footprint within 30 years.
“We have a real opportunity to impact our future, our kids’ future, the stability of our planet in agriculture as well,” said Dumond.
You might think the negatives – tariffs, fewer markets and a poor planting season would outweigh the good farmers see. But it’s the opposite.
“Farmers are eternal optimists – you could never be a farmer if you weren’t positive, you wouldn’t survive,” says Dumond. “We are used to change, we are used to being flexible to weather the storms.”