‘The outlook is pretty bleak’: Farmers brace for a difficult season
When Brain Neff retired from the Air Force, he had his eyes on a farm on the outskirts of Traverse City, Michigan.
The land was once operated by his wife’s grandparents before it was leased out for years after her grandparents stopped tending to it. In 2021, the Neffs bought the property back with plans to transform it in retirement.
“We had it in mind that we were going to turn it into more of a destination farm akin to the types of things that we saw when we were in the military, out in California and other places in the country,” Neff said.
Neff says he was anticipating 2026 to be their first profitable year, but because of the financial issues they, and many other farmers are facing, he no longer thinks so.
“My projection would be that we will not turn a profit this year,” Neff said.
Neff’s story is not an isolated one.
An April survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation found nearly 70% of American farmers say they cannot afford fertilizer. It also found almost half of Midwestern farmers report they cannot afford all the supplies they need.
The survey drew from 5,400 farmers in each state and Puerto Rico. According to the responses, 94% of respondents reported their financial situation has worsened or remained the same since last year, while only 6% reported improvement.
The survey shows Midwestern farmers reported slightly stronger purchasing plans, but nearly half still said they could not afford all the supplies they needed. While farmers in the other parts of the country are less likely to purchase fertilizer ahead of planting season, this could sharpen stress on America’s “breadbasket” which a 2026 report from the Future of Food Coalition described as “one of the most intensively farmed agricultural regions globally.”
For many farmers across the Great Lakes region, those numbers are not abstract statistics but are shaping what gets planted, harvested and what is profitable.
Neff says the cost of urea, a chemical used as a fertilizer, went up from $612 to $892 from April 2025 to April 2026, changing the decisions he is making this year.
“I chose to forego putting urea down on our grass hayfields this spring,” he said. “Any additional growth I expected to see from the hay would have just been eaten up in cost.”
The decision to forego the urea will likely impact the outcome of production, Neff said he will “have a reduced first cutting because of it.”
“We’re continuing to put our own equity into this farm to establish it and hope that things turn around next year,” he said.
Causes
National policy decisions have continued to impact farmers.
Bob Thompson, president of the Michigan Farmers Union, said the first ”hammer” to farmers was “the implementation of tariffs” that “has had a real detrimental effect at the local farm level.”
As part of a larger implementation of sweeping tariffs, in February 2025, the Trump administration announced a 25% tariff on all imported steel and aluminum products. Economists warned the tariffs could raise costs for farm equipment, replacement parts and transportation.
As these tariffs are still in effect, the Iran conflict has only exacerbated these issues, with the Strait of Hormuz being closed.
In the survey, Farm Bureau wrote: “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is keeping critical fertilizer supplies and crude oil from reaching global markets, putting a squeeze on supplies around the world.”
Roughly 25% of the world’s oil supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz.
As gas and oil prices continue to rise, the blockade has been felt immediately by farmers.
“I was spending below $3 for agricultural diesel, and I just called to get my tanks filled, and I was told it was going to be $5.98 a gallon,” Neff said.
And the effects of the Strait of Hormuz being closed will not just be felt by farmers but “consumers are going to continually feel the pinch because virtually all goods move by truck in this country,” Thompson said.
Farmers are stuck playing the waiting game, Dennis Kellogg, who sits on the Michigan Farmer’s Union Board of Directors, said.
“It’s very difficult to plan for a future with these unknowns,” Kellogg said.
For organizations looking to help farmers, like employees at Michigan State University’s Extension program, they are also seeing these effects.
“This is heightening what’s already a bad situation for many farms,” Jon LaPorte, a Farm Business Management Educator at MSU Extension, said.
LaPorte said that many farmers are still experiencing loss from the previous years, “Everyone’s worried about it because 2024 and 2025 weren’t the most profitable years either” which is forcing farmers to ask the question of “What’s the bare minimum that we would have to put out (money) to ensure a crop?”
Outcomes
Through these difficulties, farmers are forced to make short-term decisions that may have long-term consequences.
Thompson warned the long-term consequences could extend beyond one growing season.
“The outlook is pretty bleak right now, right across the board,” Thompson said and later added. “The end result is that there will be fewer farmers. There will be bankruptcies.”
Though farmers may be resilient, Thompson warned of the mental stress these families are going through, which can include increased drug use and in the worst cases, suicide.
“We need to try to be aware that our friends and neighbors might look good on the outside, but be torn up on the inside, and we need to try to be friends,” Thompson said.
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