Wahoo, Nebraska — Strong winds whipped around Doug Bartick, a fifth-generation farmer, as he headed to a grain bin to shovel soybeans onto a conveyor ramp. The 60-year-old was anxious at the start of the spring farming season, talking about a long list of problems affecting his family’s livelihood on their 2,000-acre farm near Wahoo, Nebraska.
The high cost of fuel, equipment and fertilizer – exacerbated by the Iran war – as well as tariffs, “price gouging” by suppliers, and falling soybean prices due to global oversupply. All of this weighs heavily on Bartik, who is president of the Nebraska Soybean Association.
“The biggest difficulties we face are our inputs, whether it is fertilizers, seeds, chemicals or parts,” Bartek said. “There have been a lot of drastic signs in all of this. And I kind of feel like the farmer has been painted into a corner.”
Many Midwest soybean producers share Bartek’s concerns. Costs, such as equipment, have crept up over time while soybean prices have remained low. They say tariffs imposed by the Trump administration last year and a months-long trade war with China have made matters worse. Then the Iranian war disrupted the movement of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, restricting it Global fertilizer supply And send Fertilizer prices are sky high. The ceasefire agreement announced on April 7 raised hope that bottlenecks in the Strait would ease, but the future of the agreement is uncertain.
“A lot of producers are feeling very nervous going into this year,” said Justin Sherlock, soybean grower and president of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. “It looks like we’re going to see another year of negative returns.”
Soybeans, used for livestock feed, food and biofuel, are among the most important US agricultural exports. This was not always the case. Before the 1960s, soybeans were not a major crop in the United States, according to Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. It was only in the 1990s that soybean production accelerated due to global demand — primarily from China — and soybeans and corn now dominate U.S. agriculture.
But US soybean farmers, who typically grow corn, had been facing financial problems for years even before the start of the Iran war. Soybean prices have remained persistently low in recent years. The global market has been awash in soybeans, driven in part by Brazil, which has overtaken the United States as a country The world’s largest soybean producer years ago.
“If we look at global soybean production over the last several years, it continues to set record, after record, after record,” Hart said. “There were huge supplies globally, and that led to lower prices.”
At the same time, costs for soybean growers in the Midwest rose. Total agricultural production expenses, including seeds and pesticides, have increased over time, according to the USDA. Operating costs for soybean production have remained high since 2020 and are expected to rise again in 2026, according to the agency.
Experts say the cost of land is also a major issue for farmers. The value of farmland in the Midwest increased. Most regional farmers lease some of their land, according to Joanna Colosi, a research assistant professor in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics.
Bartik, who rents three-quarters of his land, said landlords are raising rents, causing more financial pressure.
“There are a lot of what I call absentee landowners who have absolutely no idea what’s going on on the farm,” he said. “All they know is that their taxes went up and you have to make up the difference, one way or another.”
“They are very concerned about negative margins caused by low prices and high costs,” Paul Mitchell, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said of farmers. “A lot of them have a cash crunch and they’re just trying to figure out how to deal with everything.”
The number of farms in the United States has shrunk over time, and consolidation in agriculture has become a long-term trend, although the financial pressures farmers face due to rising input costs and falling commodity prices have contributed, Hart said. Larger farms tend to be more competitive and rely on large, expensive machinery.
“The financial reserves that the farm needs are much greater than they were before,” Hart said. “We’re a little more sensitive to financial conditions these days because a lot of capital is being used in the agricultural business.”
Market forces are not the only issue affecting farmers. Sweeping definitions President Donald Trump’s imposition in April 2025 exacerbated the trade war with China The largest buyer of soybeans in the United States. China responded with retaliatory tariffs and effectively boycotted US soybeans. Main export market segments to Midwest farmers, resulting in lower soybean prices.
“When this was announced and soybean prices basically collapsed, if you can keep the beans and wait for better times, you’re OK,” said Mike Cerny, a soybean and winter corn farmer in Sharon, Wisconsin. “If you have an outstanding mortgage, outstanding payments, or cash flow needs and you have to sell at that point, you’ve been taking it too harshly.”
The United States and China eventually An agreement will be reached in late 2025. Beijing has pledged to purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans by January and at least 25 million metric tons annually over the next three years. China since then It achieved its initial goal of purchasing soybeans The Trump administration also launched a A temporary aid package worth $12 billion In December to support farmers affected by the trade war.
But experts and farmers say the damage has already been done. While China’s renewable purchases and federal payments help, they are not enough to offset farmers’ losses. Even after federal aid, farmers would still lose nearly $75 per acre of soybeans harvested in the 2025 crop, according to the American Soybean Association. The trade war has pushed China towards competing soybean exporters. Like Brazil – The trend of declining US soybean exports to China has accelerated.
“When China decided to stop buying, we couldn’t find enough other markets to replace those sales,” Hart said. “We are still feeling the effects today. When you look at the level of soybean exports today versus what we would normally expect, we are still 15% to 20% behind normal.”
Global rivals to U.S. soybean farmers have benefited from the trade war, said Joseph Glauber, the former chief economist at the Agriculture Department from 2008 to 2014.
“When China imposed tariffs on the United States, it tended to buy from Brazil or Argentina, mainly from Brazil,” Glauber added. “We are no longer as world dominant as we used to be in terms of the global export market for soybeans.”
After the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, there was a sharp slowdown in shipping traffic through Iran. Strait of Hormuz It sent oil prices soaring. The shipping disruption has also largely halted the export of nitrogen fertilizers manufactured in the Arabian Gulf and restricted access to key fertilizer components. Prices of urea, the most widely traded nitrogen fertilizer, have risen significantly.
Soybeans do not need nitrogen fertilizer, but it is necessary for corn, and most soybean farmers also grow corn. About half the global supply of urea comes from the Middle East, and Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the largest sources of U.S. fertilizer imports, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The United States and Iran Agreement on a two-week ceasefire Last week included the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but traffic has remained slow amid disputes over Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and the price of urea remains high.
Many Midwestern farmers purchased their fertilizer long before the spring planting season. But some farmers who did not buy early face higher prices. Dave Walton, an Iowa corn, soybean and hay farmer and vice president of the American Soybean Association, said in March that some of his neighbors didn’t have cash last fall to buy fertilizer and were struggling to budget for fertilizer because of high prices.
It was also caused by war Increased prices of petrol and dieselWhich causes more headaches for farmers. Oil prices fell Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at investment research firm Morningstar, said the war and the closure of the strait would have lasting effects on farmers after the ceasefire was announced. He added that facilities in the Middle East that are vital for the export of chemicals, oil and other goods were damaged or destroyed during the war, and it will take some time for supply chains to recover.
“Facilities have been hit, like LNG terminals,” Goldstein added. “You’re also looking at a major supply crunch in commodity chemicals, which are inputs for crop chemicals.”
“We’re burning a lot of diesel,” said Chris Gould, a corn and soybean farmer in Maple Park, Illinois. “It’s hard to say whether I’ll be ahead or behind in this whole deal. But I suspect I’ll be left behind.”
The financial problems of farmers are evident in some measures. Farm bankruptcies, while still relatively low, continued to rise in 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. In a survey of 400 farmers conducted by researchers at the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture in late March, nearly half said their farm operation was financially worse off than it was a year ago.
Higher costs for farmers and lower revenues contributed to a rise in bankruptcies between 2024 and 2025, said Goldstein, the Morningstar analyst. He added that if costs rise faster than crop prices in the future, it will “strain farmers again and potentially lead to more bankruptcies.”
After 43 years of farming, Bartik said the smell of fresh dirt still gets him excited about planting in the spring. But he also heard about farmer suicides, bankruptcies and “retirement sales” where farmers are forced to auction off their operations due to financial problems. Bartik likens farmers to gamblers who put “millions of dollars in the dirt” hoping for returns.
Sometimes, Bartik doubts his decision to go into farming. He also worries about his son, who bought a farm a few years ago.
“Did I do the right thing to help him farm?” Bartik asks.
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Keleti reported from Phoenix.
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This story is a collaboration between Lee Enterprises and The Associated Press.