‘I just gotta eat and feed my family’: Wisconsin farmers feel impacts of trade and tariff war

CLINTON, Wis. (CBS 58) - Wisconsin farmers are fighting to stay afloat this Fall, after this year’s growing season was impacted by the ongoing tariff and trade situation. 

Soybean prices have gone down according to Wisconsin farmer Matt Rehberg, who co-owns Meadowdale Farms in Clinton. 

“The entire growing season this year has been kind of a big question mark,” Rehberg said. “Right now, we’re definitely in a down trend on pricing.”

Rehberg has already harvested most of his soybean crop this year and has been forced to sell it at significantly lower than average prices.

“You get to a point with it that you’re just like well this is not the price we were hoping for, but you have to kind of move on,” Rehberg said. “It affects guys you buy seed; you buy fertilizer, you buy machinery from and of course our own day-to-day lives.”

It takes around 14 months from start to finish to grow and harvest soybeans, which doesn't help with the current uncertainty. 

“I’m one guy so I just gotta eat and feed my family and so you just try to cut down to keep doing that,” Rehberg said.

Rehberg says other parts of the country are in worse situations and he’s not the only farmer feeling the impacts. 

“I understand we’re not a large part of the population, but we are a large part of feeding people,” Rehberg said.