\n Yeley is not sure he\u2019ll earn a profit this season, even with prices up for for his corn and soybeans.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re not a big county, but we\u2019ve had three farmers go under this year,\u201d said Yeley. \u201cI know that\u2019s on the minds of everybody, is it really worth it to keep going on? The stress level is pretty high.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Currently, the price of diesel is the most pressing problem for farmers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Diesel is a workhouse fuel that powers farming equipment, like tractors and combines. The national average for diesel has accelerated faster than the price of gasoline and is now near its recent an all-time high of $6.53. In many states in the Midwest farm belt, the cost is even greater: The average price in Illinois, for example, was $6.82 as of Friday.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Sue](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gettyimages-2270026557.jpg\")
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\n Farmers generally buy thousands of gallons each year. Yeley usually buys 8,500 gallons twice a year to run his equipment.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis is the first year in my adult life that we have not bought an entire transport load either spring or fall due to fuel cost. We\u2019ve been buying it piecemeal \u2026 1,000 or 1,500 gallons at a time, hoping that we\u2019d see a price drop,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s not happening.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Sammy Tookey grows all manner of produce \u2014 tomatoes, corn, melons, peppers, squash, lettuce and chiles \u2014 on 10 acres in northern California\u2019s wine country. He sells about half his harvest to a food co-op and the other half at three farmers\u2019 markets each week.\n <\/p>\n
\n He\u2019s feeling the squeeze from higher prices for diesel, as well as cardboard boxes and fertilizer \u2013 costs of which have also increased by double digits over the past year.\n <\/p>\n
\n Russia\u2019s war with Ukraine first cut off supply of some of the raw materials needed to make fertilizer, boosting prices. That only got worse this year, when the war in the Middle East cut off fertilizer exports. Fertilizer prices are as much as 50% higher in the last year, according to experts and farmers.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Sammy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/kibby-tookey-1.jpg\")
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\n Tookey has raised his prices but not enough to keep up with ballooning expenses. He said he doesn\u2019t want to scare off customers.\n <\/p>\n
\n While he plans to plant again in the spring, he\u2019s uncertain how long he\u2019ll remain a farmer. Tookey is getting married in late October and worries about how he\u2019ll support children.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cBeing able to have a family and a farm seems almost impossible,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Tookey\u2019s stepfather, George Kibby, has a bleaker view of the current state of farming. He retired in July after 40 years in the industry because the land he leased in Orange County, California, was sold for housing.\n <\/p>\n
\n The cost of land, equipment, labor \u2014 along with the instability of prices for essentials, such as diesel and fertilizer \u2014 makes it impossible to earn a living these days, he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cUs little farmers don\u2019t have much of a chance,\u201d said Kibby, who moved north with his wife this summer to help Tookey. \u201cYou work so hard not making money.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Besides the cost of raw materials, there are many other factors squeezing farmers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Most farmers take out short-term loans to cover costs between planting and harvest. Interest rates are higher as central banks raise rates to tamp down inflation, pushing up borrowing costs.\n <\/p>\n
\n Various US trade wars, particularly with China, have cut off critical markets for products like soybeans. That\u2019s driving down prices in the short term, and farmers worry that market share will be lost in the long term.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cOur farm and the vast majority of the farms (I know) are anticipating they\u2019re going to be losing money this year, and the vast majority lost money last year,\u201d said Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a fifth-generation farmer.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cFarming does have ups and downs naturally, but when it happens year after year after year, eventually you\u2019re no longer a good credit risk, and you can\u2019t borrow money to keep farming,\u201d added Lehman, who grows corn, soybeans, oats and hay.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20250803-151041.jpg\")
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\n The number of farm bankruptcies rose 20% in the 12 months ending in June compared to a year ago, according to federal bankruptcy filing data. But the worst is yet to come, said Tom Ajamie, an attorney active in the farming sector.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA lot of these farmers are on the edge,\u201d he said. \u201cSo yeah, It\u2019s a 20% increase right now, but what happens in the next two, four, five months? A lot of farmers are just barely clinging on right now. You will see that number increase, I guarantee it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Some congressional members from farm states, like Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, have pressed the Trump administration to ban US diesel exports<\/a> as a way to get immediate relief. But many energy experts doubt<\/a> that will lower diesel prices.\n <\/p>\n \n The American Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture groups seek the passage of a new farm bill, which has cleared the House. The proposed legislation includes help for farmers, like raising federal farm loan limits that haven\u2019t changed since 2018.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYou get into the lame duck session, and I think we can find a bipartisan path forward on a lot of things,\u201d said John Newton, vice president of public policy and economic analysis for the American Farm Bureau Federation, referring to the period after midterms and before the new Congress begins.\n <\/p>\n \n Even if a bill eventually passes, even if diesel comes down later this year, that won\u2019t help the farmers harvesting crops right now.\n <\/p>\n \n Many told CNN that they feel like victims of things set in motion around the globe over which they have no control.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFarmers are used to dealing with unpredictability with weather, you know, soil conditions, livestock,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cPolicy decisions that have put farmers at the right in the front of economic damage – that\u2019s what\u2019s very frustrating.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Yeley has spent the last 26 years working on his farm, which his family has owned since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-614450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}