Standing Up for Ohio Farmers
Stable Markets, Not a Cycle of Crisis and Bailout
Agriculture matters in Ohio’s 14th District — from soybean and grain operations to the vineyards, orchards, and specialty-crop growers that make Northeast Ohio what it is. Farmers here are used to managing risk. Weather, pests, equipment that breaks the week before harvest — that’s the job, and they’re good at it. What they can’t out-work is policy that takes away their buyers and raises their costs in the same year.
Washington’s own decisions helped create this problem, and Washington’s answer has been a relief check and a pat on the back. Farmers have been clear that this isn’t what they want. They’d rather earn their income from the market than collect it from the Treasury — a preference you’d think would be easy to accommodate.
Maria’s approach starts there.
By the Numbers
Agriculture isn’t a side story in Ohio — it’s the state’s #1 industry, and the pressure on it is measurable:
76,000
Farms across Ohio, nearly 9 in 10 family-owned
1 in 8
Ohio jobs tied to agriculture and food production
#6
Ohio’s national rank in wine production, with 430 wineries
$76.2M
Estimated loss to Ohio agriculture from tariffs and lost China trade
~1M
Acres of Ohio farmland lost over the past two decades
What Ohio Farmers Are Dealing With
Lost markets. Trade disputes and retaliation have cut Ohio soybeans off from their largest export customer. China, which once bought roughly a third of Ohio’s soybean crop, has pulled back sharply — U.S. soybean exports were down 34% year to date in early 2026, and one analysis puts Ohio agriculture’s losses at roughly $76.2 million. When the buyers leave, prices follow, and farms with thin margins feel it first.
Rising costs. Meanwhile, the price of what farmers buy — fuel, seed, fertilizer, equipment — keeps going up. Tariffs added more than $33 billion in farm input costs nationally in 2025. Selling low and buying high is not a business model, but it’s the one many family farms have been handed.
Specialty growers, too. Northeast Ohio’s vineyards and wineries pay more for imported barrels, glass, corks, and equipment, and navigate shipping and distribution rules that make it harder to sell a bottle of Ohio wine than it ought to be. Their exposure is less direct than the soybean grower’s, but their costs are just as real.
Farmland under pressure. Development — including large data center projects and the tax incentives behind them — is driving up land values and taking productive acreage out of agriculture. Farmland converted to other uses rarely returns to farmland.
Maria’s Position
Washington’s approach to agriculture right now is pretty simple, and wrong: make the trade decision first, find out what it did to farmers later, and send a check when the phones start ringing. The check covers one season. The lost market doesn’t come back.
The soybean grower whose buyer disappeared didn’t get that buyer back. The winery paying more for every barrel and bottle didn’t see those costs go down. A relief payment doesn’t fix any of that — it just makes it quieter for a while.
Maria thinks farm policy should start with a plainer question: can a family in this district make a living from their land? Everything else follows from that. Trade policy is steady enough to plan around. Input costs a farm can actually carry. Crop insurance that works at the family scale, not just corporate scale. None of that is radical. It’s what farmers had before Washington started spending their markets and calling the checks generosity.
Ohio farmers deserve a representative focused on markets, prices, and survival — not just paperwork.
Maria’s Plan
Restore stable, reliable markets. Maria will push for trade policies that open doors for Ohio agricultural products rather than slamming them shut, and demand that Washington stop treating farmers as bargaining chips in trade disputes, then hand them a check after the damage is done.
Tackle the cost squeeze. Maria will support policies that lower input costs, strengthen competition in seed, fertilizer, and equipment markets, and give family farms real tools — like a strong, affordable crop insurance system — to manage risk without relying on emergency bailouts.
Fight for specialty crops and Ohio’s wine country. Maria will work to modernize shipping and distribution rules that limit market access for Northeast Ohio’s vineyards and wineries and oppose tariff policies that raise costs on the materials and equipment our growers depend on.
Protect farmland for the next generation. Maria supports farmland preservation, smarter land-use planning, and tax policies that don’t reward paving over productive farm ground, so Ohio agriculture has a future, not just a past.
A Note from Maria
“For a long time, this country kept a basic deal with the people who feed it: farm honestly, and you’ll get a fighting chance. That deal didn’t break because farmers changed. It broke because Washington started using them as bargaining chips in trade fights, then mailing out checks to cover the damage. But you can’t mail somebody back a market. Some of these buyers took thirty years to earn and were gone in an afternoon.
We need to go beyond haggling over the size of the next bailout after Washington screws things up. I want Ohio farmers to have steady markets, honest prices, fair competition, and farmland that stays farmland. Farmers built this state. The least Washington can do is stop breaking things.”