During Trump’s last term when he fucked over soybean growers, at least locally in my rural community, the soybeans didn’t go to waste. They didn’t rot in the fields or in storage. However, farmers ended up having to sell for way less than normal, and basically they didn’t make any profit (many even saw losses) that year.

This issue with this year, again I can only speak to my area, is that by the time Trump was elected, most people would have already placed their orders for seed and the specific chemicals/supplies they needed for soy, so they’re on the hook for it. They would have been facing the decision to take a sure loss (ex: if they didn’t plant the soy they’ve already purchased and/or if they had to go procure some other crop seed and related supplies) OR they could go ahead as planned with the soy and hope for the best.

Where I live, most farmers aren’t “soy farmers”, they’re just farmers. They rotate crops from year to year on a pretty rigid schedule, so one year it’s soy, next might be corn, grains following that, then cover crop / hay. So, they better hope the weather holds up next year for whatever crop they were planning because I doubt a lot of them will be able to tolerate multiple years of essentially no profit.