Mid-Columbia farmers cautiously optimistic about second Trump administration, farmworkers feel differently

In Pasco at RDO’s annual customer appreciation event, hundreds of people lined up for tri-tip. 

RDO sells tractors. Long tables were set and surrounded by million-dollar green machines. Kids fished icy drinks out of a frontloader bucket and mobbed the bouncy house. 

In southeast Washington state, both farmers and farmworkers are contemplating the pre-spring cold, and the new Trump administration. But their worries about the future are often not the same. 

At the RDO event, spud buddies Jared Balcom and Lance Bunger, of Pasco, stood nursing red Solo cups. They said they’re nervous about the future – especially the price of potatoes. 

“I think anything is better than where we’re currently at,” said Balcom. “We’re currently highly regulated, and the hope is that some of that will dissipate.”

“One hundred percent, 100% agree,” said Bunger, “but it’s not gonna happen overnight. It’s gonna take time.” 

Bunger said he’s losing so much money that it’s turned his humor dark. 

“Yeah, I’m looking for a job. Are you hiring?” he said.

Austin Roylance, of Othello, and his young daughter sit at a long banquet table flanked by massive agricultural tractors for a customer appreciation dinner at RDO in Pasco. He says he thinks the Trump administration will be good for agriculture. (Credit: Anna King / NWPB)

From spuds, talk turned to immigration at a nearby table. Austin Roylance, of Othello, works as a pesticide and fertilizer applicator, and sees many different farms.

“I honestly don’t think they are going to deport families, bust in doors,” Roylance said. “As long as you’re a law-abiding citizen you’re gonna be OK.”   

By late afternoon, Bill Shibley was pumping black coffee out of a craft for a bit of a wake up. As an agricultural loan officer at Wheatland Bank in Pasco, he sees nearly 40 farmers several times a year. 

“Everything from hay and potatoes, to apples and cherries and grapes,” Shibley said.

He said people who grow heavily labor-dependent crops like apples are more worried about prices than immigration policy.

But he said he’s still concerned about new tariffs. The last round under Trump cost export-dependent Washington apple growers more than $500 million, according to the Northwest Horticultural Council. 

“When we start having trade wars it will cause us some problems,” Shibley said. “So yes, I do worry about tariffs and trade wars.”

One farmworker remembers previous crackdowns on immigration, when he saw people screaming and running from immigration officers in the fields of the Mid-Columbia. (Credit: Anna King / NWPB)

In one orchard in the Columbia Basin, workers had a different set of worries. The aluminum ladders rattled and clanged as workers lopped off high branches. One bundled up farmworker said he’s definitely watching changes to the immigration rules. 

“We are worried about it,” he said, “because we all know what could happen if this deal goes through.” 

The farmworker, who didn’t want to share his name or his citizenship status, said he remembers past immigration crackdowns — the screams and people running through fields during the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

He said it’s especially scary for families like his, with two working parents. 

“Let’s say, for instance, if I get deported and my wife gets deported, then my kids are left alone with nobody,” the farmworker said. “Because some of us don’t have no other family around. So that’s the biggest fear, that your family might get left alone.”

An estimated more than 300,000 people in Washington and Oregon are undocumented, according to the Migrant Policy Institute. The Washington State Office of Financial Management has similar numbers. 

This farmworker said his coworkers are all immigrants like him – he said he’s never seen a white person working alongside him. 

“I’ve been here for 40 years and I’ve never seen it,” he said. “I’ve seen them driving tractors, I’ve seen them punching cards when you’re harvesting — which is a different kind of work. But picking berries or apples or any kind of fruit? Not yet.” 

Farm owners and farmworkers both see big changes for agriculture coming under a second Trump term, even if they see it from very different perspectives.