President Donald Trump arrives to address the annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans. | Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Agriculture Shutdown tests farmers’ loyalty as Trump visits their annual convention

NEW ORLEANS — President Donald Trump’s visit to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention comes at an awkward time as farmers and ranchers begin to feel the pinch of the partial government shutdown.

The president delivered remarks Monday afternoon before an overwhelmingly friendly audience of members of the country's largest farm group. But with the longest shutdown in U.S. history now in its 24th day, local Farm Service Agency offices have been shuttered for weeks, locking out farmers from getting loans and other help with their operations.


Trump received a warm welcome and spent much of the speech defending his demand for border wall funds that prompted the shutdown. He also thanked farmers for their “support and patriotism” while he fights for the wall.

“Many people that aren’t getting payment, that aren’t being paid, have let us know in the strongest of terms, a big amount, they said, ‘Sir, what you’re doing is of paramount importance. Do the job right. We are with you 100 percent,’” Trump said.

Farmers at the convention generally backed Trump’s focus on border security but the prolonged shutdown tied to money for a border wall is testing the support of some.

“I think we need to somehow reasonably enforce our borders, but agriculture is very dependent on immigrant labor, so it’s kind of a Catch-22 if you go too far,” said Brian King, a corn, soybean and hog farmer in Oneida, Ill.

“I don’t think it’s worth shutting down the government for,” said Josh Abma, a vegetable farmer in northern New Jersey, though he acknowledged the shutdown might be necessary for Trump to get his way.

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Several others said they are willing to back the president despite the economic harm to their livelihoods. George Driver, a retired timber farmer in central Tennessee, said he thinks the border wall is worth any temporary effect on agriculture. And he said most farmers he knows feel the same way.

Crucial programs that farmers need are also suspended amid the shutdown. Agriculture Department services on hold include rural housing loans and USDA data reports that can affect commodity prices.

Other pledges from the Trump administration — such as new initiatives in the just-passed farm bill and trade-relief payments for farmers who haven’t already applied for aid — are also delayed. Meanwhile, Trump’s trade turmoil hasn’t been helping farmers, either.

“We have farmers that have loans with the FSA,” said Randy Poskin, a corn and soybean grower from central Illinois who voted for Trump. “If they can’t do that business, that’s going to create problems.”

Poskin said the administration’s record so far has been “a mixed bag.” He cited the Republican tax-code overhaul and Trump’s rollback of an Obama-era water regulation known as the Waters of the U.S. rule as big wins for the industry.

But he was skeptical about whether Trump’s effort to secure funding for a border wall was worth shutting down the government.

“I know that there’s problems on the border,” he said, citing cross-border drug trafficking. “But yet, a border wall across the whole thing? I don’t see that.”

USDA has scrambled to defer the shutdown's most dire consequences. It has extended the deadline for commodity producers to apply for trade-relief payments and is planning an unprecedented move to pay out billions of dollars in February food-stamp benefits weeks in advance.

Billy Rochelle, a farmer who raises corn, soybeans, wheat and beef cattle near Centerville, Tenn., said he hasn’t yet applied for the trade-aid program and would have faced a major headache if USDA hadn’t extended the application cutoff date, originally set for Tuesday.

Rochelle said he was generally supportive of the president’s agenda, even on trade, despite farmers and ranchers taking the brunt of the blowback as China, Mexico and other top trading partners slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farm goods.

“I know he supports rural America,” he said. “We've seen better years. ... We’re adjusting accordingly, trying to survive, just like everybody else.”

Despite growing consequences from the shutdown and Trump’s trade wars, Rochelle, Poskin and other farmers at the event said they’re still standing behind the president — and expected him to receive a warm welcome from the Farm Bureau crowd.

“In this world, he’s very popular,” Poskin said.