CHAMPAIGN — Illinois soybean farmers are set to receive special federal payments at the end of February meant to offset losses from last year’s trade disruptions. But while farmers welcome the relief, many say it will only provide temporary respite.
Illinois soybean farmers have been caught in a cost squeeze after years of financial pressure tied to rising input costs, shifting export markets and falling grain prices. The strain intensified when China — Illinois’ largest export market for soybeans — sharply reduced purchases amid escalating tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, prompting Gov. JB Pritzker to declare a state of emergency for Illinois agriculture last fall.
While China has recently increased U.S. soybean purchases under a different trade agreement, many farmers worry that the country's shift toward suppliers in South America could have lasting effects on Illinois agriculture.
Lance Muirhead, a seventh-generation farmer in Macon County, calls the temporary federal help — known as bridge payments — a "necessary evil."
“I hate to rely on government aid, and especially ad-hoc payments like that," Muirhead, 29, said. "It's just a Band-Aid and it's not covering the whole wound."
Illinois is the top producer of soybeans in the country, harvesting over 639 million bushels in 2025 — approximately 17.4 million metric tons. In 2024, the U.S. exported 26.8 million metric tons of soybeans to China, with Illinois alone accounting for $1.4 billion in sales.
In 2025, China halted imports of U.S. soybeans for several months before a November trade agreement in which China committed to purchasing 12 million metric tons – a target that represents a sharp decrease from 2024 levels, and which ultimately wasn't fulfilled until early 2026.
In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the “Farmer Bridge Assistance Program,” authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act. Of the $12 billion being made available, the USDA said, $11 billion is earmarked for farmers who produce row crops, to cover the losses felt during the suspension. Those include corn and soybeans, the two biggest crops in Illinois.
‘I don’t want it to hurt anymore’
Rob Albers, 60, a sixth-generation farmer in Macon County, welcomes the payments, while acknowledging they won't cover what he's lost.
"The payment I'm going to get doesn't even pay the interest on my operating line for a year," he said. "We'll take it, but I'm not sure how helpful that dollar amount is going to be."
Albers said he voted for Donald Trump for president, hoping he would fix what Albers saw as an unfair trade relationship with foreign markets. He still believes in building new domestic markets and understood that tariffs would bring disruption. But after last year’s losses, he said he has felt the cost first-hand.
"The reality is, even though I said then, 'I want this to happen, and I know it's going to hurt, and we're going to have to give a little', well, now it hurts," he said. "And I don't like it anymore. I don't want it to hurt anymore."
Jerry Costello II, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said that while the payments will cover some of the losses felt during the fall, it is not a long-term solution. Stable relationships with trading partners, he said, are key to ensuring that customers don’t look elsewhere for agricultural imports.
“The reason that countries have done business with the state of Illinois and the United States is because of the stability of the relationship that we’ve always brought,” Costello said. “As well as the quality of our commodities.”
Read more: Illinois ag director says Trump trade policies are ‘crushing’ farmers
While the Supreme Court recently struck down much of the legal basis for Trump's tariffs, it’s unclear whether that will mean tariff relief for farmers in the U.S. The administration has signaled it will pursue new tariff authority, and Costello fears that the long-term damage to trade relationships is already done. Nowhere is that concern more acute than with China.
China typically accounts for more than half of U.S. soybean exports, but after trade tensions escalated in recent years, it increased purchases from South America. Although China has recently ramped up U.S. soybean purchases, Costello said he worries the state’s largest trade partner may continue looking elsewhere for supplies.
“My major concern is that a lot of that market may not come back,” Costello said. “It makes it extremely difficult for our younger farmers and our family farms. We’ll be dealing with this for decades to come.”
Trade tensions self-inflicted
Competition from South American producers has created new pressure on Illinois growers, according to the Illinois Soybean Association, which works to maintain and create trade relationships for farmers.
Todd Main, the association’s director of market development, said he is accustomed to market uncertainty driven by weather and other natural disruptions, but recent trade tensions feel different.
“We’ve elected to have these problems,” Main said. “If you take your best customer and you poke them in the eye, they may have a hard time seeing the value of the relationship.”
Kevin Johnson, director of government relations and strategy at the soybean association, emphasized the need for predictability from the federal government. While markets will naturally ebb and flow, a mid-year wrench like tariffs negatively impacts farmers.
“Farmers work in long-term cycles,” Johnson said. “Just give us certainty and we’ll work through it.”
A soybean farmer himself, Johnson said that while the past few years have been challenging, he remains hopeful that there are better times ahead. “Farmers are eternal optimists,” he said. “We put a seed in the ground and hope it grows. Somehow it always comes up.”
Rebecka Pieder is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, and is a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.