Chickpea farmers suffering 'a real catastrophe' after Trump's trade war tanks prices by more than half

With no end to President Donald Trump's trade war in sight, many chickpea farmers are bracing for tough financial times ahead in the coming year.

NPR reports that many chickpea farmers in the Pacific Northwest have a huge percentage of their crops sealed away in storage with little hope of finding buyers anytime soon.

"30 to 40 percent of our total revenue is in the bin," chickpea farmer Allen Druffel tells NPR. "And we're not sure what we want to do with it."

Druffel says the timing of the trade war couldn't have been worse, as he'd had one of his best crops ever, only to see prices for chickpeas plummet from 50 cents a pound in February to just 18 cents a pound in December.

Tim McGreevy, the head of the American Pulse Association that represents farmers who grow pulse crops such as chickpeas and lentils, tells NPR that his farmers have lost an estimated $500 million in potential revenue thanks to Trump's trade war.

"To describe this as a bad year for export markets is a gross understatement — this has been a real catastrophe," he explains.

McGreevy goes on to tell NPR that many older farmers might just decide to give up if the market continues to be this bad, while younger farmers starting off their careers might be stuck with high debts with little hope of repaying them given current prices.