Chris Gibbs already knows he’s going to be in the red this year. Again.
He owns 560 acres in Maplewood, Ohio. He farms mostly soybeans and corn, which get turned into vegetable oil, livestock feed, and corn syrup. He also grows a bit of wheat and has a few dozen cattle. In the driveway, he’s got a semi-truck holding a thousand bushels of corn, ready to go to Dayton, Ohio, tomorrow to get turned into syrup.
A lot of his costs have gone up this year.
Since the war in the Middle East started, the price of diesel is up more than 30%. Fertilizer has also gotten more expensive. He says prior to the war, he paid $665 per ton for urea. By March, it was $852 per ton. Gibbs uses a lot of both, especially as he enters planting season.
The diesel in Gibbs’ truck is one of his many production costs that increased this year. He says he uses the most during his planting season, which starts in less than three weeks.
Caleigh Wells/Marketplace
Tariffs are making things more expensive, too. He opens up a shed where he stores some of his machines.
“This piece of John Deere equipment is made in Moline, Illinois. Doesn’t get any more American and apple pie than that,” he says.
He lifts a cover on his grain head, which harvests soybeans and wheat. He points to a casting and a pulley, which were both made in China. The drive chain he replaced on his corn planter last year is made in China, too.
“What do you believe farmers make things out of? Steel, aluminum, and lumber, which have been tariffed recently,” he says. “When you tariff China and when you tariff our trading partners, that hurts me, because that makes these parts more expensive.”
And while his costs are up, his sale price is down. Because of import taxes, countries aren’t buying U.S. crops like they used to. He’s also got corn leftover from last year. And he’s got to take whatever price his buyer offers, just like every other farmer.
Several parts inside Gibbs’ John Deere equipment were made in China. He says especially when a part needs replacing in the spring, he’ll pay whatever the dealer charges so he can fix it quickly, even if tariffs make them cost more.
Caleigh Wells/Marketplace
“They kind of get stuck in the middle,” says economist Faith Parum at the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We’ve seen rising number of farm closures. We’ve also seen some rising number of farm bankruptcies.”
Gibbs isn’t that bad off yet, but he did delay buying fertilizer this year. And he’s not the only farmer doing that.
“I was talking with an ag retailer the other day. He’s like, ‘My warehouse is still full.’ And that’s not common for this time of year,” says Melinda Witten with the Ohio AgriBusiness Association.
Gibbs expects to lose $100 for every acre he plants this year. He’s been losing money since 2023.
“How long can you last, not making money? Apparently we’re going to find out,” he says.
The Trump administration has sent out billions in bridge payments to farmers to get them through this year’s harvest season — a program that Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said shows “President Trump continues to put farmers first.” Parum says even with a bailout from Washington, most corn, wheat, and soybean farmers will still lose money this year.
Farmer Chris Gibbs does not like being reliant on government aid, but in the past two months, he’s changed his stance.
“By golly, this administration owes me money, because they got me in this situation. The prices of diesel fuel’s up. That’s going to cost me money,” he says. “We’re not making any trade to China. That’s going to cost me money. Our nitrogen fertilizers have gone up because of the Iran war. That’s going to cost me money. By God, you owe me money.”
Related Topics