Agriculture’s ‘perfect storm’

I find myself thinking about agriculture a lot lately.

I’m not a farmer, but I know enough about farming from the stories I’ve heard over the years from friends and associates. I hear from farmers and their advocates who tell me how tough conditions have become. I read the headlines from data and analysis that we are provided on a steady, daily basis in the news business. I understand what’s at stake from the stories I read and edit.

Here is a sampling of one month’s worth of some of the agricultural headlines we’ve reported on at Talk Business & Politics:

• Arkansas farmers could lose $665 million in conservation funding

• Arkansas rice, soybean farmers to face tough conditions in 2025

• Arkansas poultry sector challenged by disease, industry changes

• Egg prices could reach new highs

• Riceland Foods Ben Noble testifies in Congress on Farm Bill need.

You can read much more about Ben Noble’s testimony here. I’ve known Ben a long time and trust his experience and instincts on how policy impacts the agricultural industry.

He properly notes that farmers, particularly row crop farmers, are in dire straits. Due to weak commodity prices, higher input costs, potential trade wars through tariffs, a lack of Congress to index for inflation, and years’ worth of these compounding conditions, Arkansas’ and the nation’s farmers are dealing with a crisis they haven’t seen since the 1980s, Noble says.

“You’ve got reduced income on one side, increased costs on the other, and it’s creating a perfect storm,” he says.

For farmers who have some semblance of financial stability, they’ve already made their decisions on planting this year — at considerable risk —  and they’ll either win or lose based on what happens later this year in the marketplace and with federal policy. Many farmers are just not planting. They can’t get the money or there’s too much risk with the lack of a Farm Bill or a long-term budget. Tariff wars are pending and cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture have created uncertainty.

Washington, D.C., won’t work out any of these issues for months, if at all, and the best-case scenario right now is a decent bridge of bailout money that may help patch some gaps. Not an ideal situation, especially when you add to the mix the fact that the Trump administration has been freezing payments from a variety of agencies as it reviews spending.

I’ve spoken with agricultural lenders in the banking field who also note this full-blown storm. It’s not brewing anymore, it’s here.

In a recent conversation with Brad Chambless, CEO of Farmers and Merchants Bank of Stuttgart and the outgoing chairman of the Arkansas Bankers Association, he highlighted other points of stress on an agricultural sector that can’t take much more.

“Due to the obvious challenges the agriculture industry is facing, many Arkansas banks have exercised extreme patience in underwriting crop loans for the 2025 season,” Chambless told me. “Primarily, we have been waiting on guidance and confirmation of how and when farmers will receive any aid from the disaster support package passed by Congress in January. Albeit a far cry from making farmers whole, any source of cash flow is material in terms of being able for farmers to make intelligent business decisions moving forward.”

The American Relief Act of 2025 included $31 billion in natural and economic disaster aid for farmers and ranchers as well as a second extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, but guidance for how to make claims has put financing in a significant wait-and-see mode.

“We have customers who need the support of the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] and FSA [Farm Service Agency] programs this year more so than ever before,” added Chambless. “Unfortunately, this delay has caused a backlog of applications and placed additional pressure on FSA offices across the state. In fact, we are already experiencing delays in processing, and my concern lies in whether farmers will be able to get their applications processed in time to be useful for the 2025 crop year.”

It’s way past time for Congress to put this agricultural crisis front-and-center and pass legislation to properly fix elements of the system where there is widespread common agreement.

We know what the problems are, we know what some solutions can be to fix them, but Congress doesn’t seem to have the urgency to address this vital component of our economy. We have to end this “perfect storm” we are in. Our food supply is at stake, our national security is at stake, and as Noble so eloquently pointed out in our conversation:

“This impacts not only the farming complex, but the entire rural American landscape.”

It’s time for action in D.C. No partisan fights, no rural versus urban disagreements. Simply put, no excuses.

Fix farming before it loses its ability to recover.

Editor’s note: Roby Brock is the Editor-in-Chief of Talk Business & Politics. He hosts a weekly TV show on KAIT Sundays at 9:30am and is on three times a week on KASU.