There’s a lot going on in Washington, D.C. regarding trade agreements, and one Keota farmer is in a unique position to fight on behalf of his fellow soybean farmers. John Heisdorffer is currently serving as the Vice President for the American Soybean Association, and he’s been working on making sure Iowa’s soybean farmers are taken care of. That starts with trade agreements, which have been in flux under the new administration. Heisdorffer says the number one customer for soybean farmers in the United States is China, which he hopes will only grow stronger with the potential appointment of Governor Terry Branstad as ambassador to China.

According to Heisdorffer, other trading partners seem to be on less-solid ground due to issues arising with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the United States withdrew from earlier this year. Heisdorffer believes that will have negative consequences for soybeans, the country’s biggest export, “It’s very important to farmers that we have good trade agreements. We’ve given up on the TPP, looks like about $4.4 billion a year to the farm economy on soybeans, and that figures out to be about $.12 a bushel that we may not get here. But our hopes are that President Trump and his administration will look at this again and say, ‘Well, you know maybe TPP isn’t the best, but we can do some bilateral things that will be just as good.’” To hear more about Heisdorffer’s work with the ASA, listen to the Agriculture Magazine interview with him.