Truckloads of Midwestern oats will be sold at a loss this year in the Midwest as farmers cannot find a viable market for their crop in a part of the country dominated by corn and soybeans.

“It's absolutely maddening,” Cannon Falls farmer Shea-Lynn Ramthun said. “But that is agriculture, especially in the last few years.”

On top of the lack of a viable market, tariffs are increasing farmers’ input costs and depressing prices and access to global markets.

In the Midwest, corn and soybeans are propped up by federal subsidies and crop insurance. However, some farmers like Ramthun, in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa have started growing oats, a crop that has not been common in the area for decades. They’ve dubbed themselves the “Oat Mafia.”

Ramthun is also a soil health organizer with

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