How many farms won't survive a trade war? In Iowa, the question is real

Across the Iowa countryside, the prospect of a damaging trade war with China at a time of stubbornly low commodity prices has given rise to an uneasy guessing game among the state’s agricultural bankers and lenders. “The bankers are quietly talking in the corners of the room,” said Leslie Miller, vice president at Iowa State Savings Bank in Knoxville, Iowa. “We talk about those farmers we know that, if pricing doesn’t get better, aren’t going to make it.”Slumping commodity prices and low land valuations are nothing new. But last week China imposed an initial set of tariffs on U.S. goods, including on modified ethanol and pork. That's no small matter in Iowa, the country's biggest pork-producing state. And as the Trump administration moves to crack down on China's intellectual property practices, the possibility of further retaliation from Beijing threatens U.S. farmers' access to the second-biggest market for American agricultural goods.While the increasing U.S.-China trade tensions have fueled a dizzying spate of headlines over the last few weeks, bankers in Iowa have been hashing out forecasts of how many farmers could be forced to downsize — or pack it in altogether — by the end of the year if a full-blown trade war develops.