US ranchers wrestle with soaring costs – and their loyalty to Trump

Mannon, who returned to her native Nebraska and bought the ranch after a career in banking, believes the agricultural industry will show its feelings at the midterms.

But like many around here, she prefers not to engage in too much political debate.

That is not a problem for her friend and nearby rancher Jim Jenkins. A former independent senatorial candidate, Jenkins is fiercely proud of Nebraska agriculture and his own ranch, which is on land his family homesteaded more than 150 years ago.

Jenkins has been so incensed by the policies he feels are harming Nebraska’s agricultural industry that he wrote an opinion article over the summer in an Omaha paper.

He has felt the squeeze personally too, citing high diesel, fertiliser, lumber and steel costs – everything from barbed wire to fence posts.

That has been compounded by “uncertainty” over what may happen next, he said, and what the next Trump announcement might mean for the industry.

“Those are the things that keep you up at night,” the 69-year-old told BBC News.

An outspoken Trump critic who didn’t vote for the president during any of his White House bids, Jenkins knows he is an outlier among his conservative neighbours. When Trump was first elected, Jenkins said he hoped he would turn out “to be a practical business guy”.

Now, he said, “I think he’s been anything but practical”.