Trade War Fears

The majority of the soybeans exported out of North Dakota end up in China. A potential trade war could jeopardize that. “We’ve seen tariffs on soybeans before,” said Jena Bjertness, director of market development, North Dakota Soybean Council. “Looking at 2018 through 2020 in the Pacific Northwest, we see a huge drop off in whole soybean exports so if that were to happen again, we expect that that’s going to hit the North Dakota soybean farmer pretty significantly.” Bjertness said the situation is different at this time. “The last time this happened there were no crush plants in North Dakota and no prospects of crush plants in the state. Now we have two crush plants and that’s going to give our farmers a different marketing option.”