Mike, examples of the impact the funding freeze has on farmers and ranchers include...

Bees fertilize crops - especially HIGH value crops like nut and fruit trees. A shortage of bees in large agricultural regions forced farmers to import bees from all over the country. Trouble was, there were not nearly enough bee keepers for all the farmers who needed them - so the price of bees skyrocketed. As a result, only the very wealthiest farmers could afford bees - and a whole lot farmer's crops and orchards failed for lack of fertilizing bees. The USDA jumped in fast, and identified the problems.

One of the biggest problems was that corporations had built housing developments to the edges of farmland, leaving no native landscapes that bees depend on to survive. IOW, corporate housing developments were killing off the bees.

Farmers rallied by taking some of their land out of production and returning it to a natural state that could support bees. For example, ten of our acres is reserved for bees that fertilize our woods, orchards, grazing land and crops. IOW, corporations had built housing on cheap land in the middle of nowhere that made them billions, but destroyed the environment neighboring farmers needed to raise crops. In land-use that is known as a taking - meaning corporations took a productive land use away from someone without compensation.

To offset farmer's financial losses, the USDA established conservation funds - which farmers used to add natural landscapes on their own farmland. IOW, in order to keep farming, farmers had to start using their own land to farm bees which reduced the land they used to grow crops on. Obviously, this is just one of many corporate welfare programs.

Another example are commodity crops - corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, etc. These are farmers who grow commodity crops for the market which includes hunger reduction programs, like SNAP in the U.S. and USAID overseas. If government eliminates these programs they put farmers who have invested in growing these crops out of business.

I'm sorry but a wheat, or soybean or corn farmer cannot just turn around and grow something else. His whole corn growing operation, including his land, his trained workers and the hundreds of thousands of dollars he's invested in specialized equipment cannot suddenly grow strawberries, or lettuce, or apples.

Another example is wine and liquor. Trust me, wine and liquor producers do NOT shop in Walmart's produce section. The quality and price of the end product depends on very high value inputs. Even the barrels where wine and liquor are aged, are extremely valuable. If our government triggers a trade war, and wine and liquor get hit with tariffs, the fallout trickles down to employees who have to be let go for lack of sales, on to farmers and their suppliers, shop keepers, bars, restaurants, and finally consumers.

Here's what happened the last time Trump was in office...

The Department of Agriculture subsidy payments to farmers ballooned from just over $4 billion in 2017 to more than $20 billion in 2020 – driven largely by ad hoc programs meant to offset the effects of President Trump’s trade war.

Not only did the amount of subsidies skyrocket, but the richest farms also increased their share: In 2016, about 17 percent of total subsidies went to the top 1 percent of farms and about 60 percent to the top 10th. In 2019, the richest 1 percent received almost one-fourth of the total, and the top 10th received almost two-thirds.

People who do NOT work the land, have a hard time grasping the complex nature of rural businesses. Please remember, farmers cannot wait, if I don't get my crop planted at just the right time, I will NOT have a crop to sell for an entire year.

I'm hoping I've given you an idea of how widely this funding freeze impacts rural American businesses (farming, ranching, timber, mining, etc.)