Commentary
Almost every day I write about American agriculture. I come at it from different angles, trying to wake people up to the condition we’re in. I write about consumers and what they can do. I write about bureaucracy and the policies that need to be rolled back. I write about drought, tariffs, grant programs, and the immigration laws that quietly determine whether farmers can harvest their crops or milk their cows.
Some days it feels like shouting into the abyss.
In the last eight years alone, the United States has lost roughly 170,000 farms. That number should shake the country. Instead, it barely registers in the national conversation.
So when I saw that a group of agricultural experts and former leaders had written a letter warning that American agriculture is facing what they described as a “perfect storm” that could lead to widespread collapse, I read it carefully. A few major outlets, including The New York Times, reported on it.
I’m not sure how many people actually read the article.
When the nation you live in and love goes to war, that tends to suck up most of the oxygen in the room. Wars dominate headlines, conversations, and the attention of the public. Food systems rarely command that same urgency until something breaks.
That’s why it bears repeating what this letter said and what its authors are asking for.
Because much of what these insiders are warning about are the very same issues farmers have been living through for years.
A Perfect Storm, According to the Experts
The letter was signed by dozens of former agricultural officials, economists, and industry leaders and sent to lawmakers responsible for agricultural policy. Their warning was blunt. American agriculture, they wrote, is being squeezed from multiple directions at once. Trade disputes are closing export markets while tariffs increase the cost of inputs farmers rely on. Labor shortages are making it harder to harvest crops and care for livestock. Agricultural research and extension programs that once supported rural communities are losing funding and capacity. Meanwhile, the cost of fertilizer, machinery, and other essential inputs continues to climb.
In short, farmers are paying more to produce food while the systems that once supported them are weakening.
The letter calls on policymakers to take several steps. Among them are resolving trade disputes and stabilizing export markets that many American farmers depend on, exempting critical farm inputs such as fertilizer and machinery components from tariffs that raise production costs, addressing agricultural labor shortages through reform or expansion of farmworker visa programs, restoring funding and staffing for agricultural research and extension programs, and strengthening trade agreements that provide stability for agricultural exports.
None of these requests should come as a surprise to anyone working in agriculture. Farmers have been talking about these pressures for years.
