Kansas’ 22,000 ranches and feed lots are getting a whole lot of what they don’t need. They don’t need Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins telling American consumers beef is too expensive and they should move onto other proteins. They don’t need the Trump Administration trying to solve the affordability crisis by undercutting the domestic beef market by 25% and suddenly importing 300,000 tons of beef. They don’t need leaders throwing them an anvil when they’re already struggling to stay afloat; in 2025, over 700 Kansas farms closed their doors. Kansas’ farm bankruptcies jumped while farm employment declined.
President Donald Trump and Senator Roger Marshall may say the right things, but their actions do more damage than their words could ever heal. Trump’s policies, which Marshall has vigorously voted for and supported, have done Kansas farmers and ranchers immense harm. They’ve raised costs, depleted revenue, and stolen farmers’ pride.
There’s one thing Kansas farmers and ranchers do need that they’re not getting: for Trump and Marshall to stop trying to help.
Start with the war Trump launched with Iran. Iran’s response–using rockets and drones to close the Strait of Hormuz–removed about 20% of the world’s oil from the global market. Prices peaked near $120 a barrel. As Iran also damaged oil and gas infrastructure that will require extensive repair, prices won’t come down for years.
Kansas farmers got clobbered. Fertilizer prices leapt 40%. Diesel hit $6.50 a gallon. Freight costs climbed, too.
Marshall could’ve stopped this. He could have voted for a War Powers Resolution that curtailed hostilities. Instead, he voted against it. He could have told Trump that a war that pushes up oil prices will cripple his constituents. If he did say something, Trump wasn’t listening.
Trump and Marshall’s “help” backfired on farmers’ revenue, too. In 2024, Kansas’ farmers exported $5.4 billion of agricultural products, including $1.4 billion of beef and veal and $838 million of wheat. The large majority of those exports went to nations Trump has since started trade wars with, including Canada, Korea, Japan, and China. The result? In 2025, Kansas’ agricultural exports actually dropped by over $400 million.
The trade wars hit Kansas farmers on the cost side, too. They now have to pay at least 15% additional taxes on everything from tractors to seeds.
All the while, Marshall has cheered these policies, calling them “strong, strategic negotiating tools that [will] . . . ensure long-term economic growth.” The promised great deals for American farmers haven’t happened and almost certainly won’t, yet Marshall has repeatedly voted to preserve Trump’s ability to launch market-killing tariff wars.
They’ve also teamed up to kill domestic markets, and not just through Rollins’ suggestion that Americans turn to beef alternatives. In the One Big Beautiful Bill, for which Marshall cast a deciding vote, they cut $168 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). As about a quarter of SNAP benefits flow to farmers through food purchases, Marshall effectively voted to keep $42 billion out of farmers’ pockets.
The saddest part of all of this is Kansas’ farmers didn’t want or need any of this “help.” They didn’t need tariff protection; Kansas’ farmers are very productive; they could’ve just outcompeted everyone. Now, thanks to Trump and Marshall’s “help,” proud farmers are left needing bailouts.
Words don’t grow wheat. They don’t raise cattle. And they don’t turn red ink black. Farmers know only hard work can do that. Yet policies like Trump and Marshall have pursued mean no amount of hard work can make ends meet.
That’s help farmers could do without.
About the Author: Neal Urwitz
Neal Urwitz is CEO of Enduring Cause Strategies.
