MADISON, Wis. — This National Ag Day, Wisconsin’s farm economy is bearing the burden of GOP policies that drive costs up and stifle profits. Bankruptcies are up, sales are down, and GOP candidate for governor Tom Tiffany and his allies in Washington keep adding to the pain felt by farmers just trying to get by. Farmers who had turned to support from the Bridge Assistance Program after Tiffany-Trump tariff-taxes and trade wars ruined their sales were forced to wait for the payment to buy fertilizer—now, Trump’s illegal war in Iran, cosigned by Tiffany, is sending fertilizer prices sky-high.
Read below for more on the dire state of farming in Wisconsin:
PBS: Darin Von Ruden on fuel and fertilizer price shocks to farms
Fuel and fertilizer – the cost of them has spiked due to the war in Iran that has disrupted crude oil fields and transport, as well as the export of fertilizer. On farms in Wisconsin, growers consider their crops and spring planting in the face of this price volatility […] Darin Von Ruden: “It costs more to get the items that we need to produce the crops to the farm. There are surcharges that our co-ops in process or our delivery folks will be charging. It’s going to cost more to put the crop in the ground […] last year was not a good year for farmers on the, on the economic side. A lot of farmers posted losses in corn and soybeans, especially because of that disruption in the marketplace and not having those overseas buyers to buy that.”
Brownfield Ag News: Rising input costs are a big concern for farmers
A Wisconsin farmer is concerned about rising input costs. “There are producers who waited to purchase fertilizer until they got the Farmer Bridge Assistance while they were kind of behind the eight ball and now the fertilizer price is escalating, so yeah, there’s a lot of nervousness throughout the country” […] Goplin says they also visited the White House, where they thanked leaders for the Bridge Assistance program help, but it’s far from making farmers whole. “I made the analogy out there that if you had a $600 crop loan for inputs, but by the time you pay for fertilizer, rent, and other inputs at seven percent interest, that’s $42 an acre on interest for that year if you schedule it over the price of the year. That’s roughly what our payment was.”
WMTV: Wisconsin farmers feel squeeze as fertilizer prices surge 25% amid Strait of Hormuz disruptions
Fertilizer prices have risen 25% since the end of February, and Wisconsin farmers are now facing the financial pressure as spring planting season begins. […] Linville said the disruption to the Persian Gulf has effectively removed key supply sources from the market. “Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — and as of right now, those three are completely gone,” Linville said. Doug Rebout, president of the Wisconsin Soybean Association, said farmers are operating with no room to absorb the added costs. “There’s really no profit margin in there. So we’re just extending that loss margin for the farmers that are buying fertilizer right now,” Rebout said. Rebout said farmers who cannot secure fertilizer at current prices may face a difficult choice heading into the growing season. If fertilizer costs continue to climb, experts said consumers could eventually see the impact at the grocery store if crop yields fall short of expectations.
