American farmers warn this year feels especially dire. What happens next?
It’s been a tough year for Heath Donner’s family farm.
Located in the northeast corner of Arkansas in Mississippi County, the roughly 3,300 acres of land managed by Donner and his father produce cotton, corn, soybeans and peanuts.
Donner already anticipated challenges heading into the year amid inflated operating costs and weaker crop prices. Historic flooding in the first half of 2025 only made matters worse, wiping out as much as 25% of his corn yield.
Donner, a fifth-generation farmer, is no stranger to the business' ups and downs, but said this year is hitting farmers especially hard. One trade group is calling it an economic crisis hitting rural America.
“I've been around this my whole life, but it is as dark as I can remember,” Donner, 44, told Usa Trending News.
Headwinds for farmers in 2025
The challenge for corn and soybean producers like Donner is tied to recent years’ abundant harvests, which have driven down commodity prices.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expecting record soybean yields this year, and prices are down roughly 40% from their most recent peak in 2022. As for corn, prices are down about 50%, with the USDA anticipating record production this year.
Meanwhile, the National Corn Growers Association reports that production costs – including expenses for seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and machinery – remain near record highs.
“The squeeze is real from both sides of the equation,” said Brian Duncan, an Illinois farmer and president of the Illinois Farm Bureau.
The National Corn Growers Association calls it an “economic crisis hitting rural America,” noting this is the third consecutive year farmers have faced widening negative profit margins.
NCGA chief economist Krista Swanson said the trade group is worried tariffs could make the situation worse by driving up the cost of imports and prompting retaliatory action from countries that purchase U.S. corn.
Already, China ‒ which imports roughly 60% of the world’s soybean supplies, according to the American Soybean Association ‒ has declined to book soybean purchases from U.S. suppliers' 2025 harvest, turning instead to Brazil.
“The further into the autumn we get without reaching an agreement with China on soybeans, the worse the impacts will be on U.S. soybean farmers,” the ASA said in an August letter to President Donald Trump. “U.S. soybean farmers cannot survive a prolonged trade dispute with our largest customer.”
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