Palisades Gold Radio · Saturday, August 1, 2026
Joel Salatin, author and co-owner of Polyface Farms, highlights the financial difficulties faced by North American farmers, citing significant losses for soybean and corn farmers in 2025 and projected losses for corn farmers in 2026. He attributes these challenges partly to reduced demand from China, which is pursuing food self-sufficiency, and increased production costs for fuel and fertilizer. Salatin also notes a significant decrease in the US beef cow herd, leading to a tripling of beef prices over the past five years.
“So, um, if if you look broadly at what's coming out of the USDA and the, you know, the analysts, uh, last year in 2025, the average soybean farmer lost $100 an acre.”
“And this year, projected, uh, corn farmers will lose somewhere between $50 and $100 an acre, uh, the corn farmers in the US.”
“Meanwhile, uh, meanwhile, uh, the United States has the lowest, the lowest beef cow herd that we've had since 1950. So the price of beef has literally tripled, tripled in the last five years.”
“So, uh, the critical thing to understand is that China, which has been the largest importer of US, uh, soybeans, is on a very definite 10-year plan ending, in I think, 2030, to become entirely self-sufficient on on food stuffs.”