JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
How is the Trump administration's war in Iran playing out in the nation's heartland? New federal data shows American farmers are planning to plant a lot less corn and wheat due to the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer, which is partly owed to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports it's just the latest sign of a recession in the farm economy.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: The Agriculture Department survey forecasts the U.S.'s smallest wheat crop since 1919 and that corn planting will be down more than 3 million acres. There was a record harvest last year. But farmers are still in the red due to inflation and President Trump's tariffs. Now the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is straining fertilizer supply even more. Faith Parum is an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation.
FAITH PARUM: Not all farmers have their fertilizer figured out for the year.
SIEGLER: And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said most farmers already bought their fertilizer last year. But Parum says, in places like the Upper Midwest, many don't buy until spring, when they know how much they're going to plant.
PARUM: And if they didn't prebook it, they're now paying way more for that fertilizer. And that's, you know, adding those compounding cost pressures. That's really hurting farmers across the country.
SIEGLER: The USDA survey shows a big shift to soybeans this year, which don't require as much fertilizer. But soybeans come with their own risk. No one knows for sure whether China will keep buying American as Trump's latest trade war enters its second year. Greg Lardy is vice president for agriculture at North Dakota State University.
GREG LARDY: So without the firm commitment from China, that makes that soybean side a bit more uncertain.
SIEGLER: North Dakota typically exports half or more of all the soybeans it grows. It's also one of the country's biggest wheat producers.
LARDY: Farmers are, you know, inherently optimistic. And so you're not going to see these acres go unplanted. They're going to get planted with something. It's just a matter of what.
SIEGLER: Still, many in the heartland are worried about a crash the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 1980s. Faith Parum at the Farm Bureau says most American row crop farmers are going into their fourth straight year now of losses.
PARUM: We either need a market fix where we, you know, boost that demand for those crops domestically, or we're going to need additional economic assistance to make sure those farms stay open and make it to the next growing year.
SIEGLER: The Trump administration is weighing whether to send another bailout to the heartland on top of the $12 billion in bridge payments it announced last year, which were to go to farmers by late March.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Boise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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