When I texted Kenny Hartman Jr. the other night, he stood in Reagan National Airport, about to board a plane home from Washington, D.C.
It’s harvest in Illinois, but the Waterloo, Ill., farmer and Master Farmer is also the National Corn Growers Association president, and he’d been to D.C. to deliver a message to federal policymakers: Grain prices are abysmal, inputs are too high, and you need to create more markets.
“The only way we’re going to get out of this is to grind more corn,” Hartman says. “The big thing is demand.”
“This” is a farm economy that’s getting bleaker every day. That explains Hartman’s dedication, especially as he and his daughter Amanda harvest southern Illinois fields that are 10 to 20 bushels below average. He predicts their corn farther south might not break 100 bushels an acre.
That won’t break even, not even close. That’s an exceptional loss.
Nearly every farmer I’ve talked to this summer has plans to cut fertilizer application this fall, and hardly anybody is planning to trade equipment unless they have to. Plenty are preparing for tough conversations with landowners about lowering cash rents in 2026. Farmers in southern Illinois are harvesting a disaster-level crop, thanks to too much rain and then not enough.
It’s an agronomic disaster, an economic disaster and a mental health disaster, waiting to happen.
Hard numbers
NCGA just released a survey of U.S. corn growers, and nearly half — 46% — believe the U.S. is on the brink of a farm crisis. More than 75% are very or moderately concerned about the farm economy, and 65% are more concerned about their financials than they were last year. In 2026:
- 58% may postpone equipment purchases
- 38% may reduce fertilizer application
- 22% may look for off-farm income
That’s a grim reality — not just perception. Record-book writing is on the wall, too.
Brad Zwilling heads up data analysis for Illinois Farm Business Farm Management and reports that among FBFM farms, working capital is down 26% from 2023 to 2024. Debt-to-asset ratios are up 6.7% compared to 2022. Interest expense ratios are 4.2% — the highest since 2006. Farm operating income averaged minus $12,383 in 2024.
And the average 2024 farm operating income ratio was negative for the first time in 30 years, and well below the five-year average of 18.2%.
Those numbers confirm what many farmers already know.
“The farm economy is getting tougher by the hour,” says Sean Arians, a Morrison, Ill., farmer who also works as NCGA vice president of sustainable production. “Some say a repeat of the ’80s farm crisis. Others say worse.”
Sure, interest rates aren’t nearly as high as in the 1980s. But every other number is so much bigger now, farmers can get themselves in deeper trouble faster. The dominoes are taller, and they tip over more easily.
Solutions-oriented
So, what do you do? Increase demand, for one.
On the corn side, Congress needs to pass the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025, which would remove an outdated provision in the Clean Air Act that restricts summertime fuel sales with 15% ethanol blends, or E15. That would help.
Lesly Weber McNitt, NCGA vice president of public policy, is tired of messing around.
“Farmers are tired of excuses, tired of procedural hurdles, and they’re tired of political finger-pointing,” she says. “If legislators want to help farmers in a real, durable way, they’ll find out how to get the E15 bill done, and they’ll figure out how to implement some of these solutions.”
Soybean demand needs China. China’s not buying. As of this writing, the only deal to come out of last week’s U.S.-China trade talks involved TikTok, not soybeans.
Maybe we can watch farm sales on TikTok next year.
Farmers need input costs to come down, too, or none of the math works. Krista Swanson, who’s both an Oneida, Ill., farmer and NCGA chief economist, says it will take 226 bushels of corn to buy a ton of ammonium phosphate; that’s up from 180 bushels earlier this year. Fertilizer costs amount to 36% of 2025 corn production expenses — a record-high corn-to-fertilizer price ratio.
Republicans in Congress are calling for (more) disaster payments for farmers by year-end, and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins is reportedly working daily with Congress to figure out how much of a bailout farmers need.
The Trump administration needs to understand this: We don’t need a(nother) bailout. We need real markets so we can sell our grain for a decent price. Another bailout just produces money that flows through the farmer’s hands and back to landowners, input suppliers and equipment companies. Nobody has to lower prices when farmers can afford it.
Bleak, right?
Farmers need to demand more of Congress and of the Trump administration. Fix year-round E15. Secure real trade deals with major buyers. Pay attention. Pass a real farm bill, with real debate, instead of ramrodding a politicized skeleton of policy that doesn’t do enough for the Midwest.
Farmers need to make money. But they need to do it by selling crops — not by cashing another government check.
History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme. And we know all the verses of the 1980s.
Comments? Email holly.spangler@farmprogress.com.