EASTON, NY — Most mornings, Paul Molesky begins his workday at 5 a.m. — not on his family’s small beef farm — but as the operations manager for Allenwaite, a seventh-generation dairy operation nearby.

“I essentially farm twice a day, all day, sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I get home to see my family,” he says half-jokingly of his sparse downtime with his wife and daughter.

Molesky oversees 2,300 cows that are milked three times a day and helps maintain the equipment needed for planting corn and harvesting hay on the farm’s 3,500 acres. The 32-year-old also manages the crew of 40 to 50 employees who make sure those of us at home can pick up a bottle of fresh milk, aged cheese or tangy yogurt at our local grocery.

That is, of course, unless you have bought into the latest dietary fad and don’t consume dairy — a shift that has hit farmers’ bottom line with as much force as weather patterns and President Trump’s trade war with China.

In 2016, rural Americans, a category that includes all of America’s farmers and ranchers, overwhelmingly voted for Trump; he earned 62 percent of the vote compared to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 34 percent, according to Pew Research analysis.

Farmers have also been one of the hardest-hit blocs of voters in Trump’s trade standoff with China, which has retaliated with tariffs on American crops.

Yet, despite a flurry of national stories warning that farmers are moving away from Trump because of his trade policies, a recent Gallup survey showed that 53 percent of rural residents approve of the job the president is doing.

‘I mean, farmers, it’s just in our nature to give it everything you’ve got, and you feel like you can’t stop until you’ve tried everything, even if it’s at a loss’

That includes Molesky, who didn’t support Trump in 2016. Molesky says he finds himself impressed by his effectiveness. “Even though I didn’t vote for him, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with a lot of the policies and a lot of the actions that he’s taken.”

Farming is one those rare occupations Americans consistently hold in high regard while conversely being damaged not just by politics but also the whims of popular culture and Mother Nature.

Sometimes they all seem to conspire at once.

There are 2 million farms in America located on 900 million acres across 50 states that produce nearly $400 billion in agricultural products that are run predominantly (95 percent) by farming families who have often held on to a business that predated the American Civil War.

They are the men and women who not only put food on the table here in the United States but across the globe. The hours are awful, the yearly dividends are uneven, and yet they shy away from complaints.

Megan Dwyer, 30, is a fourth-generation farmer in Illinois, as well as the wife of a farmer and mother of three. Both she and her husband, Todd, have “off-farm” jobs to help pay the bills and most importantly pay for health care, but make no mistake, farming is her life.

“Our day begins at 4:30 a.m. with cattle chores, hopping in tractor cabs, checking fence lines, baling hay, making sure cows have water and plenty of grass . . . whatever the job may be for that day,” she says of their 700-acre operation that grows both GMO and non-GMO corn, soybeans and alfalfa, as well as beef cattle.

Two-thirds of their soybeans are exported predominantly to China, so the trade wars have really hit home.

“To me, that’s the biggest concern and scary part is that the longer this drags on, they’re finding a new market and how we get that relationship back is troubling,” she said of Chinese soybean buyers.

Last month the trade war ebbed between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping when both superpowers agreed to restart trade talks at the G-20 conference in Japan. “We are going to work with China where we left off,” the president said after their meeting.

But last week Trump accused Xi of reneging on a promise to buy more US farm products, tweeting: “China is letting us down … Hopefully, they will start again soon.”

Dwyer voted for Trump and despite the uncertain climate, she says she’d vote for him again. Agriculture, she admits, has become “an easy target for retaliation. China knows that this is a big industry and commodity for the US, and so it’s an easy push button back. And it’s unfortunate. But I also don’t feel like I’m blaming the president for my situation,” she said.

“I mean, farmers, it’s just in our nature to give it everything you’ve got, and you feel like you can’t stop until you’ve tried everything, even if it’s at a loss,” she added.

Mississippi has been slammed with wet weather since last fall and William Tabb and his wife, Cala, have certainly felt the brunt of it on the 3,000 acres they farm. Six-hundred of those acres — whose crops include corn, cotton, peanuts, watermelon and pumpkins — are now unusable.

Like the other farmers interviewed for this story, Tabb doesn’t beat his chest and blame climate change. Instead, he’s a pragmatist about weather variations — a constant in his business. And as a farmer, he sees himself as a conservationist of the land.

“On the politics, I totally support what President Trump’s doing with his firm stance on trade. Of course, it’s had a negative impact. But I think that’s dressed up a lot, because there are always going to be market fluctuations,” he said.

Tabb added that farmers are always going to be used as a political football. His solution? Encourage more farmers to run for office.

“That’s a problem though. We tend to be very quiet, put-your-head-down, do-your-job hardworking people by nature,” he said. “Plus, who is going to run the farm?”

Salena Zito is the co-author of “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” (Crown Forum), out now.