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This is a bitter harvest season for many American farmers. Now, there's nothing wrong with their crops. They are bountiful. But even as grain elevators overflow with freshly picked corn and soybeans, farmers are losing money on every bushel. That has pushed some to consider getting out of the business or worse, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Brady Holst farms with his father and brother in western Illinois, not far from the Mississippi River.
BRADY HOLST: We farm about 3,600 acres, mostly corn and soybeans.
HORSLEY: At 32, Holst is decades younger than the average farmer who's working today.
HOLST: I think a lot of people get into or stay in farming just because it's more of a lifestyle, I guess. And you always think, you know, there's room for growth.
HORSLEY: Growing conditions in Illinois and throughout the Midwest this year were practically ideal. But Holst says even a bumper crop is no guarantee of success.
HOLST: We used to just have to worry about weather. It seems like in the last 10 years you basically have to worry about what's going on with politics here in the U.S. and then geopolitics in the world because you see so many things going on that affect how farmers are doing business.
HORSLEY: The cost of fertilizer spiked, for example, when Russia invaded Ukraine. And President Trump's tariffs have driven farmers' costs even higher. At the same time, the prices farmers receive for their crops have tumbled over the last three years. Economist Shawn Arita of North Dakota State University says most farmers are now operating well below the breakeven point.
SHAWN ARITA: Right now, there's basically a triple whammy that's hitting the crop sector. You have high production costs, you have low crop prices, and then you also have the trade situation that exacerbates the conditions.
HORSLEY: In a way, farmers are victims of their own success. Unlike other countries where the government limits production to keep crop prices high, farmers in the U.S. have long been encouraged to plant fencerow to fencerow. And when the harvest is good, the resulting glut of food and fiber can drive prices so low farmers struggle to cover their expenses. Brady Holst usually sends part of his crop down the Mississippi River and on to overseas markets like China. But thanks to the trade war, China hasn't purchased any U.S. soybeans this fall. That boycott just adds to the downward pressure on prices.
HOLST: The exports going down because of China definitely has impacts on my farm.
HORSLEY: The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation warned the White House last week more than half of U.S. farms are losing money, threatening small towns and rural economies. Court records show farm bankruptcies for the 12 months ending in June were up 56% compared to the previous year. Joseph Peiffer, who helps farmers file for bankruptcy in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, says that ominous trend has continued.
JOSEPH PEIFFER: We typically don't hear from the farmers from planting season until after harvest. The last week of August and the first week of September, we took in five new farm cases. That's astonishing - shocking. And we're getting additional calls all the time.
HORSLEY: Peiffer grew up on a hog and dairy farm before going to law school, and says farming is a low-margin business in the best of times. But with today's rock-bottom crop prices, growers are increasingly desperate.
PEIFFER: One of the farmers that I talked to recently said he had his father take all the guns away from him out of the house. He didn't want any guns around because he wasn't sure what he might do.
HORSLEY: During Trump's first term in office, when China also boycotted U.S. farm products, the White House gave farmers $23 billion to cushion the blow. Trump has promised additional aid for farmers this year, but Brady Holst says what he and other farmers really need is a more dependable market.
HOLST: Really, the best thing farmers would like to see is just a place to sell our commodities at a price that we can make money at.
HORSLEY: Farmers are eternal optimists, Holst says - always hoping next year will be better than this one. But as he hauls in the last of this season's corn and soybeans and looks ahead to next year, Holst says it's not easy to maintain that faith.
HOLST: There's not a whole lot of signal of that trade war coming to an end, so it's looking like the entire next 12 months there's not going to be a whole lot of good news.
HORSLEY: Bankruptcy lawyer Peiffer says some of his clients have decided this will be their last harvest. He says sometimes when you're digging a hole, it's time to put the shovel down and figure out something else. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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