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Federal aid could decide if farms survive or fold in 2026
A farm business management instructor says ad-hoc assistance from the federal government would be the difference between a farm being able to continue in 2026 or liquidate.
Betsy Jensen works at Northland Community and Technical College in northern Minnesota. She says cash is a major issue right now.
“Farmers typically have great equity on their balance sheet. They have land, they have machinery, but they don’t have cash. Cash is always the thing that determines if a farm can survive.”
Jensen tells Brownfield…
“I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but the lack of cash and selling soybeans $1 lower than we were supposed to, those are big numbers,” she says. “There have already been low commodity prices and high input costs. It was difficult last year to get things to cash flow and I think the ad-hoc assistance would help a lot of farmers, especially if they planted too many soybeans.”
Jensen says the farm financial situation is dire.
“I worked with quite a few farms last year that had to find different financing. And I was surprised at how difficult things were to cash flow this year,” she says. “When we did cash flows in the spring, it wasn’t looking good. Prices only got worse. We were lucky to have an increase in yield up here, but the crops are worth less. I don’t know if the increase in bushels is enough to offset the price. I think there will be some potential for farmers to say, you know, it’s been a good run, I’m going to exit the industry.”
U.S. farmers are waiting on more details from the federal government on possible assistance, expected this week.
Farmers aren’t growing food to feed Americans. They are growing soybean and corn for Silage. Farmers are trying to export. Then they voted to tax themselves