Farmers Facing A “Perfect Storm” Of Challenges, AFBF Says

Farmers, particularly those raising grain crops, are struggling economically due to a number of key challenges.  Sam Kieffer, vice president of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said this is a rare intersection of high expenses and low income.

“It's a combination of nearly record-low crop prices and ever-increasing input costs, or production expenses," Kieffer noted.  "We've lost more than 160,000 farms since the 2017 Census of Agriculture. There are a lot of difficult conversations happening around those farm tables."

He said farmers also have to deal with uncertainty in areas like trade, labor, and the farm safety net.  Kieffer added the difference between input costs and crop prices is causing the biggest challenge.

“Farm production expenses have increased steadily every year since 2018, the last time a full Farm Bill was passed, and farm expense estimates, right now, are far surpassing the income for the farmers who raise major crops,” he noted.

Kieffer cautions that looking at USDA’s farm income forecast, which predicted farm income to increase, doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the farm economy.

“But that number does not tell the whole story. Almost one-quarter of all the farm income projected in that report is coming from disaster assistance, whether it be natural disaster assistance or economic assistance that Congress approved, and they're not dealing with the current economic calamity that's happening out there,” Kieffer said.

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