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LongTomH

(8,636 posts) Sun May 26, 2019, 08:15 PM May 2019

KY Farmers hurt by Trump's trade wars afraid to speak up for fear of backlash!

Courier Journal: Kentucky farmers hurt by Trump's trade wars won't speak up — they fear GOP backlash:

The Republican administration has once again increased tariffs on China. Meanwhile, farmers across the commonwealth continue to struggle from trade deficits inspired by the first round of disputes. Caught in the Republican party’s political crosshairs, farmers are stuck in an environment that has cultivated fear for anyone who dares to speak against the mighty GOP.

My name is Jim Pat Wilson, and I have a lot less to lose than some of my farming friends and I want to speak up for those who fear they will be retaliated against.

As a third-generation farmer in New Concord, Kentucky, I raised dairy cows and grew tobacco from 1969 until my retirement in 2016. Farming has changed, friends. The small farmer is a dying breed while the large corporate farms continue to feed on information campaigns of fear and folly.

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Why aren’t we hearing more concern? Because the current administration has made it impossible for farmers to criticize without retaliation from Republican landowners.

A farmer who wrote an opinion piece early last year in response to farmers’ incomes dropping more than 50% since 2013 and highlighted the increase in farmer suicides due to status-quo policies, lost 300 acres of sharecropped land because word got out that he was a Democrat.

Read the whole story here: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/05/24/donald-trump-trade-wars-hurt-kentucky-farmers-who-fear-retaliation-republican-party/1222909001/