Over the past year, farmers across the United States have been facing a crisis. Staring down record high business costs and lower profit yields, cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs and tariff policies, many have found that the profession is no longer economically viable. And now the war in Iran is adding another stressor.
“All the stress that we have seen compounding from last year has really driven more farmers to bankruptcy, to take on more loans, or just actually stop farming altogether,” says Vanessa Garcia Polanco, government relations director at the National Young Farmers Coalition.
The 2026 Farm Bill, passed by the House Agriculture Committee with bipartisan support earlier this month, is supposed to bring much needed support for farmers across the country. The bill—which still needs to go through the Senate—typically sets national policy for agriculture, nutrition, and conservation every five years. But experts worry the bill won’t be enough to fix the root challenges impacting the industry now.
“Farming is an inherently risky business,” says Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “But I think what we’ve seen over the past 12-plus months is something different.”
Looking ahead, however, the challenges are only going to multiply for American farmers. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz due to the war in Iran is expected to further increase costs for farmers, as about 20% of the fertilizer used by American farmers is produced by a Qatari facility—which is unable to be shipped as long as the Strait is closed.
Climate change, meanwhile, continues to linger in the background making crops more vulnerable to extreme weather, which in turn will raise prices and lower agricultural yields.
Why are farmers facing an economic crisis?
Since the pandemic, farmers have been seeing rising production costs, and revenues haven’t been able to keep up. “It’s a return of a classic problem that we’ve long seen. Crop input costs are higher, while revenues have fallen,” says Jonathan Coppess, associate professor of agriculture policy at the University of Illinois. “Farmers get squeezed between what they’re receiving for the crop and what they pay to produce it.”
A number of other factors are contributing to the financial strain. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have raised costs for some fertilizers by $100 per ton, along with making steel parts for farm equipment like tractors and combines more expensive.
In 2025, the USDA also paused funding that supported farmers adopting conservation practices, after many had already paid the upfront costs themselves. Meaning they would not get the financial support they expected when making those investments. Going forward, fewer will be able to incorporate more sustainable farming options—options which, as Lavender explains, “can make the farmer more productive and business more viable, but it can also support soil health and climate resilience, carbon sequestration, depending on the practice.”
On top of this, thousands of positions at USDA departments across the country were cut last year, resulting in fewer staffers being available to help farmers access remaining federal programs and funding.
“When you put all of that together, staffing shortages, the chaos of [USDA program] pauses, abrupt trade policy shifts, and tariff uncertainty, you can really quickly see the picture of where many farmers are right now, and it’s incredibly challenging,” says Lavender.
Farm bankruptcies have nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025. Garcia Polanco worries that if we don’t see action soon, we might see an exodus as more and more people turn away from the profession.
“The farmers I work with, they know what they are signing up for. They know it’s hard work. They know it’s a lot of labor. They know they can barely break even,” she says. “They go through this with their open eyes. But there’s only so many times you can take a hit and not fall apart.”
How is the war in Iran impacting U.S. farmers?
Since the war in Iran began on Feb. 28, thousands of cargo ships have been blocked from transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, sending ripples through the energy markets. The disruption has increased the price of natural gas, which is critical to fertilizer production, and put a hold on shipping fertilizer manufactured in the Gulf region.
This comes as many farmers in the U.S. are beginning spring planting. About half the world’s food is grown using fertilizer, and any shortages could impact yields. In the U.S., some fertilizer prices have shot up by more than 70% in the last 90 days.
What is Trump doing to help farmers?
The farm bill is one of the main ways the government supports the farming industry. It began after the Dust Bowl, as a way for the government to invest in policies that could help farmers navigate the ups and downs of the agricultural economy. A new farm bill is typically passed every five years, but Congress has not passed an update since the last one expired in 2023.
That means that farmers are playing by outdated rules until the new bill is approved by Congress. “The food and farm policy that we’re operating under was written, really, in 2017, before COVID-19, which we learned a ton of lessons from. It was written before we [began seeing] increasing incidences of extreme weather and impacts of climate change. And it and it was written before, you know, a long overdue racial justice reckoning over the past several years,” says Lavender. “It’s outdated farm policy and food policy in so many ways.”
Trump’s H.R.1 bill, passed last summer, included tax relief and billions in farm subsidies. And in December, the Trump Administration announced a separate $12 billion aid package for American farmers. But experts say the money isn’t enough—and that many farmers are not eligible for the aid.
Much of the funding provided in the December aid program has been earmarked for commodity soybean and corn farmers rather than specialty farmers who were impacted by program cuts at the USDA last year—and whose products make up over one-third of U.S. crop sales. Of the $6 million in aid funding that has been released so far, most has gone to commodity farmers that didn’t participate in those USDA programs, says Garcia Polanco. Further still, government funding is often used to pay down debts and doesn’t help address lost income, experts say. “The payments are not fixing the underlying problems,” says Coppess. The White House did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
Ultimately, “we do not see enough appetite [from Congress] to actually improve the safety net and actually transform American agriculture,” says Garcia Polanco.
The passage of the farm bill in the House comes after a coalition of 56 agriculture organizations sent a letter to Congress on Jan. 15 calling for action, noting that extreme economic pressures are “threatening the long-term viability of the U.S. agriculture sector.”
“In addition to continuing to pursue federal policies to increase long-term domestic demand for U.S agricultural commodities, we urge Congress to provide immediate economic support to fill in the gap of remaining losses for both field and specialty crop farmers,” the letter states. “Additional support will stabilize the farm economy, protect rural communities and ensure a secure food supply. This support must be robust enough to fill in sector-wide gaps.”
With no end date in sight for the conflict in Iran, the Trump Administration is now looking to find alternative fertilizer sources—such as from Venezuela or Morocco.
Going forward, experts stress that more needs to be done to help small farmers as they face economic uncertainty. “The safety net isn’t built for everyone, and that’s a problem, because when hiccups arrive in the economy, it’s people without support or new and beginning farmers who are the most susceptible,” says Lavender. “And so we’ve got to improve the farm safety net, and the current House bill does not do that to the level that’s needed.”
( Simmone Shah is a Reporter with Time Magazine)
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