Farmers and ranchers are continuing to struggle with a difficult farm economy. Faith Parum, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, says the latest estimates show shortfalls in the billions.

"On the row crop side, we're seeing a loss of $31 billion for crop year ‘26, going down to $32 billion in 2027," Parum said. "So again, seeing those worsening losses across the country. For specialty crops, it's harder to get a national number, but we know they're facing some of those same issues our row crop farmers are and continuing to lose money per acre."

Parum said there are several reason the challenges are increasing.

"The first is farmers are price takers, not price makers," Parum said. "So, whatever the market price is, they have to take. When input costs are low, which is our second issue, that works out pretty well for them. However, we've seen skyrocketing input costs that have really made it hard for the balance sheet to align."

Even after recent federal help to bolster the rural economy, more help is needed.

"We're very thankful for all of the work Congress did in HR 1 that increased funding to a lot of our very vital farm safety net programs like ARC, PLC, and crop insurance," Parum said. "But farmers are seeing that first payment this October, and we all know that there has been great global disruptions across the farm economy that have made those losses even worse."

For more information, visit the Farm Bureau Intel page at fb.org.