New reporting in the Des Moines Register reveals that while millions of Iowans are struggling due to Trump’s failed economic policies and trade wars, Iowa farmers are being hit hardest.

Farmers across the country are facing skyrocketing costs, including rising equipment and fertilizer costs. Farmers are also facing huge increases in health care costs as Republicans refuse to extend ACA premium credits that many Iowa farmers rely on. Nationally, 27% of farmers rely on the ACA for health insurance.

In response, DNC Chair Ken Martin released the following statement:

“On the campaign trail, Donald Trump professed his love for farmers. Now in office, he is kicking aside Iowa’s small farmers while rewarding billionaires who have never even set foot in rural America. Our rural agricultural economy is essential to the country, feeding the nation and driving economic output through high-paying jobs. Under Trump, Iowa farm bankruptcies are skyrocketing as small and family farms file for bankruptcy at the fastest rate in five years. While small farmers bear the brunt of Trump’s chaotic tariffs, they are bracing for even worse as Trump’s billionaire-first budget targets rural hospitals and decimates rural communities. Trump is single-handedly orchestrating a rural recession, with Iowa farmers and consumers paying the price.”

Read more below:

Des Moines Register: With Falling Profits, Iowa Farmers Facing ‘Extreme Financial Distress,’ More Bankruptcies

By Donnelle Eller

• Iowa farmers filed the second-largest number of bankruptcies nationally in the first half of the year, already twice as many as last year and the most since 2021. And Iowa mediators and counselors say they are seeing a rush of farmers struggling with rising financial stress.

• Bankruptcies will likely grow as farmers talk with lenders in the weeks ahead about this year’s returns and how to finance next year’s crops, farm and bankruptcy experts say. Crop prices are projected to be below or at the costs to grow the crops.

• Total bankruptcies this year grew 18% to 3,140 compared to the same time last year.

• Nationally, 181 farmers have filed for bankruptcy protection in the first two quarters of 2025, nearly 60% more than this time last year, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings. Arkansas led the U.S. with 19 farm bankruptcy filings, followed by Iowa at 16; Georgia, 15; California, 12; and Nebraska, 11.

• Farm groups and experts worry that this downturn could echo the Farm Crisis of the ‘80s, one of the worst recessions in Iowa’s history. During the crisis, falling land values, reduced global markets and high interest rates forced hundreds of farmers into bankruptcy and cut 110,000 jobs across the state at its height. Those included jobs in Iowa’s industrial sector, which remains heavily dependent on agriculture.

• In Trump’s second term, he’s again battling over trade with China, Mexico, Canada and other large buyers of U.S. farm goods, resulting in tit-for-tat tariffs.

• “Farmers are burning through their working capital, and margins are thin or below water, and it continues to chip away very seriously at the equity farmers have built up over the years,” Lehman said. “For some farmers, that puts them on the brink.”

• And farmers are getting hit with bigger expenses, like rising health-care costs, due in part to the expected expiration of tax credits through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, Lehman said.

• “You can’t just have a conversation about high fertilizer prices or where you project soybean prices will be because of trade uncertainty,’ Lehman said. “You also have to look at your health-care insurance premiums that may be doubling in the coming year.”

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