As an American farmer, JJ Ficken, 37, was perpetually subject to weather, labor, loans, overhead, markets, health, politics. None of it was predictable, and all of it was a threat. The industry’s survival has long depended on the deals made between millions of Americans willing to brave all that uncertainty and a federal government willing to sustain them, through grants, subsidies, insurance, financing, payouts and disaster relief.

But then President Donald Trump, in the earliest days of his second term, threatened to break tens of thousands of those deals, suspending billions in agricultural funding and decimating the staffs that managed it. Swept up in the freeze was JJ and the $50 million grant program he’d signed up for along with 140 other farmers across the country. All of them had agreed to hire and, in many cases, house domestic workers or lawful immigrants willing to take jobs that Americans would not, but with the reimbursements in doubt, farmers worried they’d miss payrolls, default on loans or face bankruptcy.

This story follows JJ and Otto Vargas, 24, as JJ recruits, meets and starts working with Otto –  all while JJ wonders whether the government will ever pay him back. 

John Woodrow Cox reported, wrote and read the piece. Sarah Blaskey co-wrote the story. David Ovalle contributed to the report. Bishop Sand composed music and produced audio for the piece.

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