As Congress prepares for a House floor vote on the Farm Bill next week, lawmakers are issuing dire warnings about what might happen to American farmers if an aid package doesn’t pass.
The past year was tough for American farmers, a downturn that the Farm Bureau has called a “generational rather than a temporary slowdown.” Farm bankruptcies increased 46% in 2025 and are at their highest level since 2020, though fewer farms are going bankrupt than in the 2010s.
The combined costs of seed, fertilizer, equipment and other necessary materials have been rising steadily since 2021; retaliatory tariffs from China hurt American farmers’ business last year; and the cost of gas and fertilizer is soaring as a consequence of the U.S. war with Iran.