Washington D.C — Thanks to Washington Republicans, farmers are getting squeezed on all sides. From health care cuts to tariffs to rising gas and fertilizer prices due to the war in Iran, America’s producers are struggling now more than ever.
One Nebraska farmer even stated that now “is the most difficult period of financial stress that modern agriculture has faced since the 1980s farm crisis.”
This food crisis isn’t just impacting farmers. Food costs continue to rise as congressional Republicans’ cuts to SNAP are taking effect – compounding the nationwide affordability crisis.
“Republicans in Congress have strapped farmers with higher costs due to tariffs and skyrocketing gas prices thanks to their unnecessary war in the Middle East,” said Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal. “They imposed tariffs that are decimating farm communities. They simultaneously cut SNAP and health care, preventing working families from affording the food that U.S. farmers grow. From every angle, Republicans in Congress have simply thrown farmers under the bus, and now we are all paying for their disaster.”
NOTUS: Farmers Were Already Hurting. The Iran War Made It Worse.
Key Points:
- Farmers are struggling. And while the Trump administration has insisted inflation woes will end when the war with Iran does, farmers and agricultural experts know it won’t be that simple.
- Increased costs for energy and fertilizer are compounding a host of issues for farmers already running thin business margins.
- There are tariffs on imported metals integral to the U.S. food production system. Farmers have been hit with reduced water runoff in California and bad weather conditions in Brazil. Food producers are grappling with small beef herds, pests and recovery from avian influenza.
- “It is the most difficult period of financial stress that modern agriculture has faced since the 1980s farm crisis. And I don’t get pushback on that,” said John Hansen, the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.
- Hansen said the war’s economic fallout is part of a bigger picture in which farmers are beset by business problems stemming from Washington, from tariffs to DOGE cuts affecting the Department of Agriculture to the Senate’s delay in passing the 2026 farm bill.
- The war has made things worse. The national average for gas prices punched in at $4.22 per gallon on Friday, compared to $3.14 one year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.
- One of the most substantial impacts of the war will be increased transportation and processing costs during the harvest season in late summer and the fall, experts said.
- Agricultural economist Ricky Volpe warned that those farm costs, as well as high fertilizer prices, threaten the “foundation to our food supply chain.”
- “Higher energy costs and higher fertilizer prices have already impacted the planting and the early stage of the growing process for all these commodities,” said Volpe, a professor at California Polytechnic State University.
- Hansen said he works with producers who did not purchase materials or secure their loans by March 1 — the standard time to do so — and had to refinance. Those who were approved are eating into their loans to pay higher fertilizer and fuel prices.
- Food inflation was on the forecast for 2026 before President Donald Trump launched an attack on Iran. In February, the USDA Economic Research Service predicted 3.1% inflation for all food this year. The food inflation rate hit 3.2% in April, a half-percentage-point increase from the month prior.
- A sustained conflict would add roughly 3 to 6 percentage points to food inflation numbers over the next year to year and a half, primarily burdening lower-income households that spend a significant portion of their income on food.
To learn more about the campaign, visit UnrigOurEconomy.com or contact press@unrigoureconomy.com
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About Unrig Our Economy
Unrig Our Economy is a national campaign to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people. We know that when the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding corporations, their wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable.