Kenney Barnard’s family has cultivated tobacco on Hoot Owl Hollow Farm in Amelia Court House since the 1950s. Through decades of shifting public sentiment and declining demand, they held firm.
Even as health advisories against smoking and chewing tobacco eroded profits and neighboring farms pivoted to corn, soybeans, and vegetables, Kenney and his brother Daniel stayed the course, growing Connecticut wrapper leaves for cigars and dark-fired Virginia tobacco for pipe blends, chewing tobacco, and snuff.
Today, at 75, Barnard is one of only four remaining tobacco farmers in Amelia County. He continues the work not only for profit, but for legacy – a legacy he fears may end with him. That legacy now faces mounting pressure.
The trade war and tightening immigration enforcement threaten the future survival of farmers like Barnard. Barnard and others say they may change their growing plans or switch to livestock. Agriculture industry experts, including soy, tobacco and corn growers, tell the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO they’re adjusting to the new policies under President Donald Trump’s administration. To many, uncertainty lies ahead.
Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on farms threaten immigrant labor after the Trump administration reversed an initial enforcement exemption for farms, hotels and restaurants. Rising Trump tariffs have pushed Virginia farmers’ foreign trading partners to make deals with new international competition, closing key markets. China, for example, has stopped buying U.S. soybeans in response to the export taxes.
Tony Banks, a senior assistant director at the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, noted an irony: favorable weather this year has led to a great harvest, but combined with tariff policies, crop prices have been driven down.
“We have been pretty fortunate this year to have avoided a major tropical storm or hurricane here in the Virginia Mid-Atlantic region,” Banks said. “But, with some of the tariffs, we're looking at a bumper crop for both corn and soybeans that's going to keep farm prices depressed for at least for this next crop season.”
The market for agricultural products has fallen since a recent peak in 2022. Prices for staples like corn and soybeans have remained flat during the last 12 months. But costs for fertilizer and other inputs have outpaced inflation, squeezing farm incomes.
Cattle and beef prices are at record highs, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Reports say this is because cattle inventory is currently at its lowest level since 1974.
This month, the Trump administration suggested a bailout of at least $10 billion for farmers to offset losses from the trade war.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said in an interview Wednesday that Virginia’s farmers are looking for open markets, not a bailout from the Trump administration. He called the tariffs “idiocy” and has brought floor votes to the Senate to end them.
“I know the President is floating a bailout idea, but how about just stopping the carnage with the tariff regime?” Kaine said. “That's what's hurting these farmers.”
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In Virginia, the survival of farms like Barnard’s is not just a matter of legacy. It is about economics. The agricultural and forestry sectors make up about 9.3% of the Commonwealth’s GDP, contributing more than $82 billion to the economy annually, according to the Virginia Farm Bureau’s estimates. Even though much of what is produced in agriculture – corn, for instance - is sold to other American companies like those in the poultry industry, agriculture and forestry still account for seven percent of the value of Virginia exports last year.
But Barnard’s uncertainty remains. He said he would wait and see what relief gets to farmers.
“I'm not very optimistic about anything the government has to do,” said Barnard, who voted for President Trump and supports his policies. “They tell you one thing and then do something else most of the time.”
But federal subsidies have provided steady revenue for Hoot Owl Hollow Farm. Since 2003, the farm has received about $812,000 in U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group’s farm subsidy database. During Trump’s first term alone, the farm received about $261,000.
Barnard is one of thousands of Virginia farmers who received similar subsidies. The USDA says the subsidies awarded to farmers and agribusinesses promote specific farming practices, provide disaster aid and risk mitigation, fund research and development, and support nutrition assistance programs.
But subsidies have not offset his disappointment in government policies, which he said have hurt farmers.
“This is the second time he's been president, and both times he put tariffs out, it has killed farmers,” said Barnard, who traces his family’s southern history back generations and displays a large Confederate flag over one of his farm houses. “He has tried to make things right, but it still ain't right.”
But his concern is not just about tariffs.
On a quiet Monday morning in August, as Barnard walked the rows of his 14-acre tobacco farm, he shared a growing concern: the fear his workers now live with, despite being in the country legally.
Barnard employs his five-man crew through the H-2A visa program, which allows U.S. farmers to hire seasonal migrant laborers for temporary agricultural work. The program enables farm workers to travel to the U.S. for up to several months before returning to their home countries.
In 2025, about 150 Virginia farms filed “clearance orders” with the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement as mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor. The farms were looking for U.S. farm workers before hiring migrant workers, according to department records.
The Department of Labor mandates clearance orders as a requirement of the H-2A program, which ensures that temporary agricultural jobs are made available to U.S. workers before farms hire foreign workers. The records show that of about 2,800 seasonal workers needed, legal H-2A workers would fill more than 90% of the positions in Virginia.
Barnard pays the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association to complete and file H-2A forms for his farm. In line with the H-2A program requirements, he covers the cost of the seasonal workers’ travel to the U.S and provides rent-free housing on his property. Most farmers, including Barnard, pay H-2A workers $16.16 per hour, according to Department of Labor records.
During the tour of his farm, Barnard stopped to greet Martin, one of the five Mexican workers employed on the farm. They exchanged a few words in Spanish. Martin has worked seasonally at Hoot Owl Hollow Farm on the H-2A visa for nearly four decades, a quiet fixture in the farm’s history.
His seasonal workers have become like family, Barnard said. “Martin was about 20 years old when I first went down to Mexico to get him to work for me in 1986. Since then, he has brought three of his kids and his cousin to work here after they became of age.”
In the past, Barnard would hold their passports for safekeeping when they arrived.
When they arrived this year, the workers asked for their passports back.
“They are afraid that ICE may pick them up while driving to town for grocery shopping,” he said.
The workers declined to speak with the reporter as they noticeably pulled up their masks when they spotted cameras.
Even though Barnard has not heard of any raids at nearby farms, he fears the workers may be reluctant to return in the next planting season.
He asked them directly if they would come back next year.
“When I asked them, they told me they would come back,” he said. “If they do not come back next year, I won’t raise tobacco.”
Barnard also cultivates 800 acres of soybeans, a U.S. crop Chinese buyers have shunned this year in retaliation for the tariffs. He plans to store the beans and hopes a resolution to the trade war comes soon.
While he is getting no revenue from soybeans, he has turned his sights to a third pillar of the farm: 225 cows. Beef prices have risen, and that could be enough to cover the farm’s operating costs.
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In Accomack County, Lynn Gayle, 72, runs Mount Nebo Farms.
Gayle, who has farmed on the Eastern Shore since the 1980s, also has felt the recent economic pressures.
Gayle dedicates half of his 2,600 acres to soybeans and the other half to corn on a rotational basis. It is a popular system to keep land fertile and healthy.
Cultivating corn and soybeans has posed a challenge to Gayle this year. Because of the trade war with China, he’s had to store his soybean harvest. Corn prices have fallen, so he expects to store a significant portion of his corn harvest, too, despite selling most of his harvest to the poultry industry in the Delmarva Peninsula.
All this comes as the cost of farm inputs – especially fertilizer and pesticide – continues to climb, according to Bloomberg and World Bank data.
Though he’s hesitant to blame the trade war, Gayle’s view on the logic behind the tariffs is blunt. “Somebody's gotta buy the beans for them to collect the tariff, right?” he said.
Gayle also has a multi-year debt for farm improvements to contend with.
With such costs, not selling half of his harvest is a significant strain.
“We're just struggling and doing whatever we can to trim our production costs to survive, Gayle said. “Unfortunately, a lot of farms are going to go under.”
Farm bankruptcy is on the rise this year, according to the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, which reported 259 bankruptcy filings across the U.S. in the first three months of 2025. This already outpaces the total for all of 2024, when 216 farms declared bankruptcy.
Asked how long his farm could hold out if the trade war is protracted, Gayle said the only thing that would keep him going is good yields, even if he is putting his harvest in storage. If production is down even a little, he said, “it’s going to be rough for us.”
Two years ago, he installed a 100,000 bushel grain storage on his farm. This large storage capacity means he can store substantial amounts of his harvest until the prices favor a sale and he can recoup his investment. He hopes prices do not dip lower.
Both Gayle and Barnard said the trade war would not affect how much they will plant next year. They said it would be better to put their harvest in storage than to lose acreage.
“I rent 90% of the land I farm,” Gayle said. “You can't say you can’t afford to do this and then cut your acres back. Somebody will gobble them up.”
Reach Kunle Falayi at Kunle.Falayi@vcij.org.
