SC's soybean farmers were hit by crush plant closure. Then came US-China trade war

It is a chilly, foggy morning in Allendale County — almost a two-hour drive outside of South Carolina’s capital city.

Here, for miles, farms line the two-lane road: cotton, corn, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and other crops.

On the more than 2,200-acre Sharp and Sharp Certified Seed farm, it’s business as usual as Rachael Sharp watches as workers use what looks like an industrial-sized washer to clean seeds — a loud process that Sharp says separates the crop from the trash.

Sharp said she did not plan to become a farmer before joining her dad, Don, on the family farm started by her grandfather in 1947.

She has grown to love it.

But she also doesn’t want to sugarcoat it.

It’s been a hard year — or years — for South Carolina’s farmers, from market volatility, to tariffs and drought.

“It’s tough right now. The majority of what you hear (on the news) is probably not an over exaggeration,” Sharp said. “Every thing is sky high, except prices. You’re paying more to grow them, to ship them.”

Sharp is talking about soybeans, one of the top crops their farm harvests — a process that begins now.

Soybeans are a top commodity in the state and a top export.

The crop last year alone accounted for 380,000 harvested acres in South Carolina.

That’s almost 13 million bushels worth more than $138 million.

But farmers who harvest the crop that’s used in crayons, feed and food, oil, tires and plastic have been bruised this year.

First, the Archer-Daniels-Midland plant — the sole soybean crush plant in the entire state — closed in in the Town of Kershaw in Lancaster County, forcing farmers to find out-of-state and, for many, more logistically taxing alternatives.

A month later, in an even greater punch, the globe’s largest soybean importer China stopped buying U-S soybeans — a response to tariffs levied by the Trump administration.

Instead, China looked to Argentina and Brazil.

The administration now says China has committed to buying millions of metric tons of U-S soybeans for the next several years. The Associated Press reports that the 12 million metric tons China says it will buy through January is about half the usual annual volume.

And the administration is reportedly readying to roll out an aid package for impacted farmers, helping to ease the financial toll, POLITICO reported.

But the monthslong damage may have been done, says Sharp, who advocates for farmers, like herself, through the South Carolina Corn and Soybean Association.

Sharp, who also serves on the state Soybean Board, says farmers are tired.

“We don’t want a package. I mean, it’s nice in that it puts a Band-Aid on a bullet hole, if that makes sense. But we want the market. The market needs to be open. The market needs to be there for us,” Sharp said. “That’s how we want to make our living — not off of government funds or handouts is what some people would call them. It helps, and I’m not saying that I’m not grateful for them because we are and it does help get us through, but that’s not going to be … sustainable for South Carolina for any soybean farmer.”

For years, trucks carrying loads of soybeans were part of daily life in the Town of Kershaw, a typical, small South Carolina town where textile mills were once king.

Beyond the location of the state prison and the gold mine a few miles up the road, Kershaw residents knew the impact of the ADM crush plant.

“I go by, I feel like I’m going to a funeral,” Town of Kershaw Mayor Mark Dorman said.

Dorman has lived in Kershaw all his life. He said ADM’s closure was a shock to the town that many still have not accepted.

It will take months, into years, he said, for the ADM plant to be torn down as the Illinois-based company slowly takes part by part away.

Around 40 people lost their job.

It was also a large water and sewer revenue source for Kershaw, Dorman said.

“Back in the day, it was vibrant,” Dorman said. “It was people everywhere, and it was running and everybody knew it. That’s a big loss for us.”

There are still soybean crush plants across state lines, said Bennett Harrelson, who with father and brother farm their 140-acre property in Rembert, near the Sumter-Kershaw county line.

With that, he said, “there’s a lot of logistics and, trucking is not cheap.”

And farmers are still on the hook for that, explains Harrelson, who is also the executive director of the South Carolina Corn and Soybean Board and the Corn and Soybean Association.

With farmers in the lurch after ADM’s exit, many found some reprieve when the state Ports Authority, the state’s agriculture department and private businesses identified new markets to export more than 3 million bushels of soybeans using more than 2,800 export containers between May and August.

The move, the port said, raised exports at the Inland Port in Dillon by 35 percent.

Harrelson said it’s a welcome move through a vital state asset.

But, he adds, it’s resulted in more questions and some concern from farmers about the future logistics of moving millions of soybeans through the reality of one of the most congested parts of the state.

“We’re trying to do everything that we can to advocate for those, for our fellow farmers to show that, hey, we need some kind of life raft to be able to get us to next year, get us to the end of this trade war, allow these markets to open back up, allow these prices to go back to where we can start, generating a consistent return,” Harrelson said. “There’s always been storms in any line of business, and we’re just doing everything we can to try to weather this one that we’re in currently.”

State Sen. Russell Ott, a Calhoun Democrat who farms and also harvests soybean crop, said how to weather it — short- and long-term — is the question.

“You lose farmers every year. But this has been an issue that we’ve been dealing with and fighting for the last several years where the input costs are far outpacing the price that you’re getting for the finished product,” Ott said.

Ott said short term the Legislature will likely need to step in to help mitigate what he said should not be a partisan issue.

But will they is the better question, he said.

Long term, Ott said, “We’re going to have to increase demand. We’re going to have to expand our markets so that farmers will have a steady place that they can go and sell what they’re growing.”

Everyone around the country is having the same conversation, said Hugh Weathers, the state’s longtime agriculture commissioner.

Here in South Carolina, Weathers said efforts are ongoing to expand port exports, increase soybean storage and help farmers by tapping into the state’s Growing Agribusiness Fund.

He said he’s also talking with lawmakers about some initiatives that he said may offer a state-managed temporary safety net, something like a refundable tax credit that can help all farmers, not just soybean farmers.

“(So that famers) don’t throw the towel in until the cycle comes out, and gets out of this bad economic cycle,” Weathers said.

How long will that be?

Weathers, drawing a long breath, said, “depends on a lot of things beyond farmers’ control.”

Weathers knows farm aid bills can be tricky in the Statehouse.

His message to farmers right now?

Not a day goes by that he and other state leaders he said do not “have their (farmers) future in mind.”

Back in Allendale, Rachael Sharp said farmers are anxious.

The Sharps have themselves made cuts in some places.

And they are looking for other ways to earn revenue.

They know farmers who are no longer farming this year, unable to stay afloat.

One farmer, she said, took their life.

So why are farmers, like her, still doing the work?

“I like seeing stuff grow. I like the fresh air, I like being able to see the stars, that’s what I tell people all the time,” Sharp said.

Plus, she asks, who else is going to feed America?