"The Worst in 40 Years", American Farmers Can't Stand It Anymore

The US government's trade policies and the ongoing military operations against Iran have continuously raised the production costs for American agriculture. The rising prices of fertilizers and fuels have caused farmers in the US to complain bitterly. With less than three months until the US midterm elections, the Financial Times of the UK reported on the 25th that farmers in the major corn-growing areas of the US Midwest said that the soaring prices of diesel and fertilizers were pushing them "to the brink", and they had already fallen into "the most serious crisis in the past 40 years".

Baily, a corn and soybean grower in eastern Nebraska, said that the current planting costs are "ridiculously high", and the phosphorus fertilizer used during the planting season is nearly twice as expensive as it was 10 years ago, "making it impossible to calculate what to charge". Hansen, the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said that US agriculture is experiencing "the most severe financial downturn since the 1980s".

A report from the US Farm Bureau Federation showed that without government assistance, the major agricultural producers in the US would suffer a loss of 31 billion US dollars this year and the loss would further increase to 32 billion US dollars next year.

The report stated that in fact, even before the trade war and the US-Israeli war against Iran broke out, American farmers had been enduring the pressure of low grain prices and declining incomes for several consecutive years. The economist of the US Farm Bureau Federation, Parum, predicted that by next year, the majority of major field crop producers in the US would experience negative profits for the sixth consecutive year.

At the same time, the Trump administration's trade war has further impacted US agricultural exports. Many farmers believe that they are victims of the government's trade war. They said that the trade war has damaged US agricultural exports, especially the sales of soybeans to China. According to data from the US Farm Bureau Federation, in 2025, a total of 18 farms in Iowa applied for bankruptcy, a 220% increase compared to the previous year. Iowa is the second-largest soybean-producing area in the US, and due to the decline in exports, local farmers have had to seek buyers everywhere.

In recent years, in addition to facing the problem of rising production material costs, the US agriculture has also had bad luck. Some farmers said that extreme weather has caused problems for agricultural production to become increasingly severe. Recently, weather factors such as drought have led the market to lower its expectations for this year's US corn production and pushed up corn prices. Since this year, the price of US corn has risen by nearly 20%.

The war against Iran has made the operating environment for American farmers even more difficult. The US Energy Information Administration data shows that the average price of diesel in the US has risen to 5.45 US dollars per gallon, compared to 3.81 US dollars before the war. In addition, Brad Luben, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said that the prices of interest expenses, labor costs, and production costs such as agricultural machinery are also rising.

The former president of the US Corn Growers Association, Johnson, said: "The war against Iran has created huge uncertainty for farmers, and agricultural operations are expected to remain unprofitable for the next two years."

The US farmer group was originally an important voting bloc for Trump and the Republicans. Now, this group has shown increasingly strong dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. Republican Senator Tom Tillis said on the 24th: "With only 71 days until the midterm elections, but we have no good news to win over the voters in the agricultural areas. Since 'Freedom Day' last year, we haven't had any."