In the heartland of America, where fields stretch to the horizon and farming is as much a tradition as a business, 2025 has brought a wave of change—and uncertainty. The U.S. agricultural landscape is shifting, shaped by global weather woes, trade disputes, and evolving demand for key crops like apples, pears, grapes, and especially soybeans. Farmers, economists, and policymakers are all feeling the tremors as they navigate a year marked by both setbacks and surprising opportunities.
According to a new report from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, published December 17, 2025, global fresh apple and pear production are forecast to dip in the 2025-26 marketing year. It’s not just a blip: global apple production is set to fall by about 5% to 81.7 million tons—the lowest level in five years. China, the world’s top apple producer, is expecting a nearly 5% decrease in output due to reduced acreage and poor weather, while Turkey’s apple crop is projected to plummet a staggering 57% to just 2 million tons after a severe spring frost. Turkey’s export ranking is expected to tumble from eighth to twelfth worldwide, with exports dropping from 157,000 tons last year to only 65,000 tons now.
But amid this global downturn, the United States is bucking the trend. U.S. fresh apple production is forecast to climb roughly 5% to 5 million metric tons in 2025, driven largely by a robust harvest in Washington State, the country’s apple powerhouse. This uptick is expected to boost U.S. apple exports by 6% to 890,000 tons, according to the USDA report. While the U.S. still trails China and the European Union in total apple production, the increased output is a welcome development for American growers, especially as global fresh apple exports are forecast to decline slightly to 6.1 million tons.
Pears tell a similar story. The domestic pear crop is forecast at 565,000 tons, up 22% from the previous year—a rebound from the historically low harvest of 2024-25. The report notes, “Although this is a rebound from the historically low harvest in 2024-25, output remains at levels not seen since the 1970s.” The U.S., mainly Washington and Oregon, ranks fourth in pear production behind China, the EU, and Argentina. American pear exports are set to hit 100,000 tons, up 39%, while imports are forecast to fall 13% to 80,000 tons. This shift returns the U.S. to being a net exporter of pears for the first time since last year, when it briefly became a net importer.
Globally, the pear crop is anticipated to fall by 2%. China’s harvest is forecast down 19% due to drought, marking the first production decrease there in seven years. Turkey’s pear harvest, estimated at 461,000 tons, is down 30%, though pears were less affected by the spring frost than other fruits. Despite these setbacks, global fresh pear exports are predicted to climb 2% higher, with China’s shipments remaining strong.
Meanwhile, the story for table grapes is a tale of contrasts. The U.S. is expected to see a 6% drop in table grape production to 745,000 tons, placing it ninth globally. Imports are forecast to reach a record 915,000 tons, while exports are expected at 220,000 tons. In contrast, China’s table grape production is booming—forecast to rise 6% to 15 million tons, thanks to innovations like rain shelters and new grape varieties. China’s exports have more than doubled in the past four years, primarily to Southeast Asia, while its imports have fallen by 45%. Global table grape production is projected to increase 2% to 30 million tons, with gains in China, the EU, and Peru offsetting declines elsewhere.
Yet, as apples, pears, and grapes face their own set of challenges, it’s soybeans that have become the flashpoint of American agriculture in 2025. Tyler Stafslien, a fourth-generation farmer in central North Dakota, has worked his family’s land for two decades. This year, wary of the volatile export market and declining profitability, he cut his soybean acreage by half. “We’ve been experiencing in ag, the last couple of years, a downturn in commodity prices, a lot of that related to just a large supply across the globe of major commodities, but then you add this trade war on top of it, and it’s like the icing on the cake,” Stafslien told Forum Communications Company.
The backdrop is a familiar one: Soybeans cover more than 81 million acres in the U.S.—about 10% of all farmland—and over 40% of the crop is exported. In 2024, soybean exports brought in $24.5 billion, with China alone accounting for $12.6 billion, nearly double the amount purchased by the next five largest export partners combined. But trade tensions have taken their toll. In 2025, China stopped purchasing U.S. soybeans during tariff negotiations with the Trump administration, turning instead to Brazil and other South American countries. The shift left U.S. farmers with unsold harvests, plummeting prices, and mounting financial losses.
Justin Sherlock, who farms 2,400 acres of corn and soybeans in eastern North Dakota, experienced this pain firsthand. “The last, you know, 13 years that I’ve been going, the last decade, has been pretty tough to really try and get established,” Sherlock said. For him, China’s late return to the market in the 2025 harvest season meant selling most of his crop early at prices well below his cost of production. He expects to lose “several hundred thousands of dollars” this year, compounding similar losses from the previous season.
The Trump administration’s response came earlier this month: a $12 billion fund for one-time payments to row crop farmers to offset inflation- and trade-related losses in the 2025 crop year. Payments are expected to be distributed in February 2026, but as Stafslien points out, uncertainty remains high. “Payments announced … must be followed by additional and expedient efforts to keep farmers on the land and to improve the farm safety net, leaving annual bailouts as cautionary historical context rather than ongoing policy,” wrote David Howard, policy development director of the National Young Farmers Coalition.
For many, the solution lies beyond government aid. Farmers and industry groups are calling for longer-term strategies: diversifying trade partners, investing in domestic processing, and increasing the use of soybeans in biofuels and other products. Domestic soybean processing is already on the rise, with new crush facilities under construction in North Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Ohio. This shift is partly driven by the growing demand for biofuel, which has provided an alternative market for soybeans as traditional export avenues become less reliable.
John Bartman, a regenerative farmer in Illinois, highlighted the ripple effects of the downturn: “So it’s more than just farmers who have been affected by this,” he said, noting that farm equipment dealers and factories in Illinois and Iowa are closing due to slow business. Bartman is among those advocating for investment in domestic uses for soybeans, though he acknowledges that replacing a market the size of China’s will be “very difficult.”
As 2025 draws to a close, a new trade agreement between China and the U.S. offers a glimmer of hope, with China pledging to purchase at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by year’s end and 25 million annually through 2028. But skepticism remains. “We’ve just gone through this tariff war, which we’re still going through right now, and what did we get out of it? China agreed to buy less soybeans than what we had last year, and we as farmers have suffered the collateral damage from this,” Bartman said.
For farmers like Stafslien and Sherlock, the stakes are deeply personal. “This is my future. This is my retirement. I don’t have a 401k plan. I have a farm,” Stafslien said. As American agriculture faces a crossroads, the resilience and adaptability of its farmers will be tested like never before.
