A Farmer's Share | Devil's Cut w Dawn Riley
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What impact do tariffs have on Kentucky farmers?
Over the past year, the Trump administration has been hurting farmers and the agriculture community with tariffs, tariffs of choice, all while making worse deals with China and giving bailouts to Argentina. We have highlighted many of the stories from farmers with our friends Jim Wade and Rusty Thompson, but today we're joined by Dawn Riley. Don is a former appointee of the George W. Bush administration who, along with a bipartisan group of agriculture leaders, is sounding the alarm on the lasting damage these tariffs could have on the industry for years to come. Don, welcome to Truth in the Barrel, Devil's Cut. Thanks for having me, Amy. Great to see you today. And thanks for coming on Truth in the Barrel, Devil's Cut.
This is the place that we sort of dig deep into the issues of the day and go beyond the headlines. So I'm really happy to have you here. Super. I'm excited to be here and talk more about this important subject. Awesome. And it's really important. It's important for our country and it's important for Kentucky. Before we get into that, Dawn, I want to sort of let our listeners know a little bit about you. I understand you grew up on a farm in central Kentucky. Is that right? Yes, I grew up in the metropolis of Mackville, Kentucky, population 200. And we still have our family farm there, though it has downsized over the years. I went to Center College and then took myself to Washington, D.C. on an internship, spent four years there working on the Hill for Senator McConnell and then lobbying for the tobacco growers before I came home for a short stint.
And then went back to D.C. in 2001 with the George W. Bush administration to USDA directly. I was one of the nine parachuters into the department, they called us. So we were the folks that walked in the very first day of the administration. I think of somebody like you as really an expert. So you came from the farming world. You're still in the farming world. You manage your own family-owned farm supply business, I understand. Yes. Yes, that's correct. We're still in the float tray business to help people grow plants. I had previously worked in the tobacco industry and now do a lot more vegetables and produce production. Yeah, so you're somebody that has sort of been there, done that on the ground in an industry, in the agriculture business, but you've also been in the policy world.
You know Washington. You know what it takes from the federal government to help those people on the ground, namely our farmers, right? And that's what makes your expertise, in my mind, so important and unique. And, you know, you and I actually have a little bit in common. I did not grow up on a farm, but I married into a family. My husband's family owns an agriculture equipment business. So they're not farmers themselves, but they are in that area. So I have listened to them and learned from them over the years that I've been married to Eric about all of these things. But you have unique experience in both the policy and the agriculture world on the ground. And you sent a bipartisan letter along with...
other experts to Congress talking about what was happening right now and really warning of widespread collapse in the industry. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. Over the last year now, several of us in the ag industry that have known each other for years and years and years, either through our roles at USDA or working with commodity groups, all the different connections, you know, that you make in this lovely world of ours. And we just kept scratching our heads. We're just like, there's got to be something that we can do to slow down the damage that's being done here with these just random chaotic tariff policies in particular, because these are markets that had been built up over 30 to 40 years that were just gone, you know, in a matter of a pinstroke.
But and that has left particularly everyone seeing the damage to soybean farmers and But that trickles on down into our rural communities with those extra dollars being gone.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What impact do tariffs have on Kentucky farmers?
0:00–6:02
2
How did Dawn Riley's background influence her perspective on agriculture?
6:02–20:49
3
What are the warning signs of collapse in the agriculture industry?
20:49–24:26
4
How do chaotic tariff policies affect rural communities?
24:26–31:55