Across the Corn Belt and Great Plains, family farms are fighting for survival. While headline-grabbing USDA figures paint a picture of rebounding farm income driven by record livestock prices and massive government payments, that story hides a brutal reality for the growers who feed the nation with corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, and peanuts. For these producers, the 2025-26 marketing year is shaping up to be catastrophic, with economists projecting roughly $44 billion in net cash income losses compared to costs. This is not abstract accounting. It is the difference between keeping the farm in the family or watching the bank auction it off.
Economists at North Dakota State University delivered the grim forecast in September 2025. Even as of mid-November 2025, no updated analysis has refuted it. Corn alone could account for $20 billion of the red ink, soybeans another $10 billion, wheat $8.5 billion, and the rest scattered across specialty crops. Production costs remain sky-high: fertilizer, fuel, seed, and equipment have not come down nearly enough to match the collapse in commodity prices. Corn is hovering above $4 per bushel, soybeans bove $11, wheat struggling below profitable levels. Global oversupply, trade disruptions, and tariff battles have crushed margins to levels not seen in years.
The human toll is impossible to overstate. Farming already carries one of the highest suicide rates of any occupation in America, often cited at 3.5 times the national average. Financial despair, isolation, unpredictable weather, and the relentless pressure of feeding the world while barely feeding your own family create a perfect storm of stress. When a grower stares at another year of working for nothing, or worse, losing ground, hope fades fast. These are not statistics. These are fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters who see no way out. We lose good people every single day because the system is failing them.
Washington knows the crisis is real. Congress passed the American Relief Act in late 2024, extending the 2018 Farm Bill another year and allocating roughly $31 billion in disaster and economic assistance. Some of that money has started flowing: livestock producers have seen relief for drought and wildfires, and Stage One crop disaster payments have gone out for insured losses in 2023 and 2024. Stage Two applications just opened in late November 2025, with more payments promised for on-farm stored commodities and milk losses.
Yet for the growers facing the deepest losses right now, the help feels like a trickle when they need a flood. Much of the relief targets prior-year disasters, not the ongoing market hemorrhage projected for 2025-26 harvests. Economic assistance tied to 2024 crops helped bridge some gaps, but payments for the current crisis are delayed, prorated, or still being designed. Farmers cannot wait until late 2026 to find out if any meaningful support will arrive for the crops they are financing today. A few billion scattered across millions of acres is a band-aid slapped on a hemorrhaging artery.
This is not a game. Row crop agriculture is the backbone of rural America. These producers put food on every table, fuel in every tank, and fiber in every shirt. When they hurt this badly, entire communities collapse: equipment dealers close, seed stores shutter, small towns hollow out. The suicide rate that already shames us will only climb higher if we keep pretending temporary patches equal real solutions.
America’s producers deserve better than ad-hoc bailouts that arrive too late and cover too little. They deserve a Farm Bill with reference prices and safety nets that actually reflect today’s costs. They deserve trade policies that open markets instead of closing them. Most of all, they deserve leaders who recognize that letting family farms bleed out is not sustainable policy; it is a national tragedy.
We must take care of the people who take care of us. The time for half-measures is over. Our growers are on the brink. If we fail them now, we fail ourselves.