St. George • Retaliatory tariffs and the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration have Utah farmers on edge.
The 10% tariffs the Trump administration levied against China on Feb. 4, and China’s retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. that go into effect Feb. 10, could hurt Utah’s alfalfa exports. Roughly 14% of Utah’s alfalfa crop was exported to China in 2019, compared to just over 5% in 2024, according to Ryan Larsen, a Utah State University agriculture economics professor.
“If there’s not negotiation but [more] retaliation, it is going to have a negative impact on all of us,” Larsen told the crowd at the Utah Hay and Forage Symposium in St. George on Thursday.
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and mass deportations, along with the prospect of state lawmakers passing draconian immigration bills this session, are also cause for concern.
Spencer Gibbons, CEO of the Utah Farm Bureau, said one example is a bill Rep. Neil Walter, R-St. George, has introduced that would lower the threshold of companies required to use E-Verify to check their employees’ residency status from 150 to just five employees.
Gibbons noted Utah’s dairy farms that alfalfa growers sell their crops to are heavily dependent on foreign-born labor.
“If you guys don’t have a market to sell to because [dairy farmers] can’t find someone to milk cows,” Gibbons added, “that’s a real problem.”
Bird flu, substandard hay prices and the possibility of drought rounded out agricultural officials’ list of things worth worrying about.
“I think 2025 is going to be a year of uncertainty,” Larsen said.
Alfalfa and other types of hay are among the state’s most valuable crops, often tallying more than half a billion dollars each year in sales. In 2022, there were 6,803 Utah farms growing at least one acre of alfalfa, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Utah Farm Bureau President ValJay Rigby, who grows alfalfa and other crops on his Newton Farm in Cache County, said alfalfa production is important for the state’s economic vitality and food security.
“We recognize that alfalfa is food that we need to be able to provide for our country, for our citizens, for our neighbors [and] for our families …,” he said. “It’s also a way of life.”
