Tariffs a question mark for local ag producers

Going on half a century in the industry, Webster County rancher Bruce Bradley knows cattle.

He raises Red Angus, Black Angus and Simmental at Bradley Cattle LLC, a stone’s throw from Redmon’s Candy Factory, a familiar landmark east of Marshfield on Interstate 44 in Phillipsburg. To get to Bradley Cattle, you get off the interstate and weave back into the southwest Missouri hills, with helpful signs pointing the way.

Bradley may know cattle, but he isn’t sure what to think about how tariffs will affect the industry. Right now, things are pretty good for beef producers, he says.

“Where tariffs are really going to affect us are with those farmers that farm our grain products,” he said. “It would appear that soybeans could probably take a hit as well as anything.”

When he looks at cattle markets, the effects may occur down the road, Bradley says.

“I don’t know – these things are bigger than me,” he said. “They’re huge.”

President Donald Trump announced a series of tariffs against more than 100 trading partners on April 2, which he called Liberation Day. He announced 10% tariffs across the board, plus higher tariffs on some 60 countries and territories – all in addition to existing tariffs.

Many nations responded to the Liberation Day tariffs with levies of their own against goods coming from the United States. Then, on April 9, the president announced a 90-day pause on tariffs above 10% for every country except China.

China imported $1.6 billion in U.S. beef in 2024 and was the largest foreign buyer of U.S. soybeans at $12.8 billion last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. In the wake of the Liberation Day tariffs, China announced an end to all of its U.S. beef imports, replacing them with Australian product.

While a disruption in international trade has the capacity to hurt local farmers and ranchers, Bradley and other beef producers are having a good go of things at the moment.

University of Missouri Extension specialist Kyle Whittaker said cattle prices are at a record high, with feeder calves selling at about $4 a pound. He explained that the supply of beef cows is down but demand remains steady.

“People are not retaining heifers,” he said. “The market’s so good, they’re selling those, too.”

Eventually, cow numbers will increase and supply will follow, and at that point, prices will likely drop. Before that happens, though, 2025 and 2026 are predicted to be record years for feeder cattle prices, Whittaker said.

“We’re encouraging farmers in the cattle business to make investments in their farms that make sense so they’ll have good, working facilities,” he said.

The biggest concern from tariffs is the possible disruption of established markets, according to Whittaker – and the second biggest concern is the possible increase of input costs, meaning the costs of everything that goes into producing the agricultural product – things like fertilizer and fuel.

“The uncertainty of the market can create some issues,” he said, adding tariffs can cause regulatory issues that can bog down the system. “For beef farmers around here, when you have high cattle prices and low feed costs, there’s an opportunity to make some money.”

In such a propitious time for the cattle markets, tariffs are not on Bradley’s mind.

“It’s hard for me to see that the tariffs have hit the beef cattle business in this very short-term period we’ve been in with it,” he said. “Our protein markets – beef, specifically – are up. Right now, we’re experiencing some of the highest cattle prices we’ve ever seen.”

Bradley is 70, though you wouldn’t know it by the way he works with his cattle in the field like a man half his age.

“I don’t know if I’ve lived through a time like this,” he said.

He said he knows inputs are going to go up.

“The one thing that concerns me is when our input cost goes up, it stays up,” he said. “When the cattle market goes down, the inputs probably won’t go down with it.”

Vehicle costs are also bound to be impacted, he said.

“So, what happens when I have to make a repair on my tractor? How much is that going to go up?” he said. “What about my truck, when I have to repair my truck or trailer or buy a new set of tires? Those are the things that are going to affect my bottom line.”

While Bradley thinks tariffs show promise for leveling the international playing field for U.S. agricultural goods, he’s not sure how things are going to shake out.

“To be honest with you, tariffs have got a lot of people sweating just a little bit,” he said.

Missouri producers
Southwest Missouri is more focused on cattle than crop production, with Polk, Lawrence and Texas counties ranking among the top producers in the state, according to University of Missouri Extension. Polk County ranks 20th among beef cow producing counties in the nation.

The hilly Ozark landscape is good for cattle grazing, but less so for crop production. Even so, the state as a whole consistently ranks in the top 10 in the nation for certain crops, including rice (fourth), cotton (fifth), soybeans (seventh) and corn (10th), Missouri Department of Agriculture figures show.

According to MU Extension figures, Missouri’s top crop is soybeans, which occupy 5.9 million acres in the state at a value of $2.7 billion. Next on the list are corn, 3.3 million acres, $1.8 billion; hay, 3 million acres, $556 million; wheat, 540,000 acres, $151 million; and cotton, 297,000 acres, $251 million.

Chris DeMoss, senior director of plant foods for Midwest-based agricultural cooperative MFA Inc., with an office in Columbia, said cost – whether of inputs or outputs – is relative.

“All things are in context,” he said.

Tariffs are just another component used in the formulation of value, DeMoss said.

“Are we seeing the tariffs play out on current products per se? No, not necessarily,” he said. “We might see costs rise, partly because of tariffs, but partly because of other factors in the world.”

DeMoss offered a primer in fertilizer, one of the inputs in agricultural crop production. Fertilizer comprises three components: nitrogen, providing energy for growth; phosphate, promoting root development; and potassium or potash, contributing to cellular structure. These are abbreviated N, P and K (the chemical symbol for potassium), and various fertilizer products have one, two or all three of these components, he said.

Nitrogen, the most available element in the atmosphere, can be made all over the world, and its manufacture is concentrated in places that have ready access to energy sources used to capture it – thus, it’s frequently manufactured in places like the oil-producing country of Saudi Arabia, or in Norway, which uses hydropower.

There are only so many places in the world with phosphate deposits, DeMoss said. That includes places like Florida, Idaho and Wyoming, but there are also large deposits in Russia and in Morocco, where phosphate production is the leading industry.

Potash has even more geographic limitation, he said, with most of it produced in Canada, Belarus and Russia, with a small quantity mined in Israel. The U.S. mines only small amounts of the potash it requires, mainly in New Mexico and Utah, and gets 80% of its potash from Canada.

Tariffs come into play for farmers who require fertilizer, and that’s the case for most Missouri crops, which include cereal grains and cotton. However, DeMoss said, fertilizer components already include surcharges, such as countervailing duties assessed on products that are subsidized by the government of their country of origin and antidumping duties on goods priced below their fair market value. Taxes and tariffs on farm inputs are not new.

“It’s still very confusing to people,” he said. “There’s not been a lot of detail rolled out about it.”

He said prices of fertilizer haven’t changed much in the past week.

DeMoss said he is confident the market will sort itself out.

“The only problem with capitalism is it works,” he said. “You may not like the tariff, but there are all kinds of things in a value that aren’t natural forces of supply and demand. This is just one more element to make it confusing.”

The unsettling thing to the market is the suddenness of it all, he said.

“I always say the two biggest wild cards in agriculture are weather and government, and the least predictable is government,” he said. “People always laugh, but look.”

Time will tell if the tariffs are a temporary negotiating tactic or they’re here to stay, he said.

“The market will make its adjustments,” he said.