“…It’s not a repeat of the 1980s, but it’s eerily similar.”
STURGIS, S.D. – A wave of bankruptcies is sweeping the U.S. Farm Belt as trade disputes added to low commodity prices and high input costs have been wearing down American farmers for years.
Throughout much of the Midwest, U.S. farmers are filing for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection at levels not seen for at least a decade, a Wall Street Journal review of federal data shows.
Data from the U.S. Courts and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) confirms that farm bankruptcies have been on the rise since 2024 and increased at an accelerated rate in 2025. The total number of Chapter 12 filings in the first half of 2025 (181 cases) nearly equaled the total for all of 2024 (216 cases) which was a 55% increase from 2023 levels.
At least one lender says farmers are seeing the most financial stress since the 1980’s. From reporting in the Farm Journal Ag Web, Greg Cole is president and CEO of AgHeritage Farm Credit Services, which serves roughly 6,700 members across 24 counties in Arkansas. Cole started in ag lending in 1984, and he says as farmers stare at loss on every crop they grow, it’s not a repeat of the 1980s, but it’s eerily similar.
“I can tell you this. This is the most stress I’ve seen since the ‘80s when you come to farm profitability, i.e. farmers losing money,” Cole says. “One positive we have now compared to the ‘80s is land values. Our land values are still positive, which gives some lendable equity —unlike in the 80s, when I started my career, when U.S. farmland prices plummeted in some areas up to 60%.”
National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is also sounding the alarm, saying agriculture is nearing a financial crisis. According to a new study released by NCGA, nearly half (46%) of U.S. farmers believe we are on the brink of a farm crisis, and 65% are more concerned now about their farm financials than a year ago.
As to the forecast for farm land prices, about half of bankers in a 10 agriculture-dependent states surveyed in November 2025 expected farmland values to fall between 1% and 9% in 2026. The survey by Creighton University found that 8.3% of bankers expect land values to fall by 10% to 20%. Another 37.5% expected little to no change in land prices, while only 4% expected to see them increase.
Marilou Johanek, writing in the Ohio Capital Journal, said, “Making the same screw up twice and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, the old saying goes. A fitting example? Try two chaotic, trade-busting Trump administrations that twice devastated America’s farm economy and twice required billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to farmers to fix this self-inflicted wound.
“The extraordinary farm aid packages: a total of $28 billion in Trump’s first term, another $12 billion (so far) in his second, are enormous amounts of money to compensate for making the same screwy tariff blunders and expecting different results.
It’s insane.”
With American farm debt projected at a record $591.8 billion in 2025, driven by input costs (fertilizer, fuel, machinery, labor) and devalued commodity markets, the risk of repayment grows.
Bryn Bird is the president of the Ohio Farmers Union. Speaking with Johanek, he said. “The biggest thing I’m hearing now is how many farm loans are being denied. Farm lenders are looking at turning away 40% to 60% of farm loans this coming year.”
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’s most recent ag credit survey shows that many lenders are seeing farmers’ incomes shrink.
While last year (2025) saw high yields for crops such as corn and soybeans, crop prices have been relatively low due the Trump administration’s trade war with China and other countries that used to buy large quantities of U.S. crops. On top of that, sticky input costs, such as fertilizer and machinery, continue to rise, leaving farmers with little, if any, money left over to pocket.
According to an MPR News report, with revenue down, many farmers aren’t able to repay their loans as quickly as they used to, and will likely need to borrow more to plant crops next year, according to the Minneapolis Fed’s survey.
“In some cases, farmers have had to give a little equity back to the banks by maybe taking on some additional debt that we would call carryover debt,” Tait Berg, a senior agricultural coordinator for the Minneapolis Fed said. “Depending on the individual producer, that would maybe really weaken their financial position.”
