Farmers are struggling to pay back their debts, according to an analysis of bankruptcy filings by Bloomberg Law.
Bloomberg found farm bankruptcies were up 55% in 2024 and are trending even higher this year.That tracks with what bankruptcy attorney Don Swanson is seeing.
“In fact, I’ve got a Chapter 12 going right now,” he said. That’s the section of the bankruptcy code for farmers.
Swanson noted that his firm, Koley Jessen in Omaha, has a few more of those cases in the works.
“Every debtor has their own issues that are unique to them,” he said, “but 2024 was a terrible year for farming.”
Farmers have been dealing with high input costs and low crop prices.
And if all the proposed tariffs go through, “that negative pressure is just going to intensify,” said Rabail Chandio, a professor of agricultural economics at Iowa State University.
She added that whether farm bankruptcy rates rise even faster depends on how long steep tariffs on China last and whether the Trump administration offers relief payments to cover affected farmers’ losseslike it did during its last trade war.
