Corn, debt and doubt: A record harvest rattles Trump’s farm economy

Reuters.com ^ | October 25, 20255:00 AM CDT | P.J. Huffstutter

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In an industry battered by debt and sagging prices, this year’s bounty is more bad news.

FREDERICKSBURG, Iowa - Kyle Wendland stepped away from his engineering degree two decades ago to follow his father – not just into farming corn, but into a world of debt, grit, and stubborn faith he could wrest a living from Iowa’s soil.

He calls his place Comeback Farms, after his family nearly lost the land in the 1980s farm crisis.

This summer, with bills mounting and a farm economy in recession, he led a team through the sweltering Midwest, scouting fields and sizing up what President Donald Trump’s administration said would be the biggest corn crop in U.S. history – a bounty that’s helped keep prices at multi-year lows.

Iowa farmer Kyle Wendland holds his daughter Mila, 5, in the backyard of their home at Comeback Farms near Fredericksburg, Iowa, during a short break in the crop tour. REUTERS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN

Measuring ears of corn by hand may seem a relic in an age of satellites and artificial intelligence. Yet the annual survey by the Pro Farmer Crop Tour felt like a rural quest for signs that Washington was now wrong – that disease or something unseen would result in a lower forecast.

As Trump fired government statisticians, farmers and traders have questioned whether the quality of U.S. Department of Agriculture data, long a market backbone, would hold up, heightening interest in the crop tour. More than 15,000 USDA employees, or about 15% of its workforce, have taken financial incentives to leave the agency under Trump’s downsizing mandate.

USDA temporarily removed some climate data from its websites, delayed a key trade report and deleted language tying Trump’s tariffs to a widening trade deficit. Agency staff shuttered research, and were obliged to correct...

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: agriculture; corn; food; grain; spammingfr

[Farmerbob]

Weren’t cattle farmers just complaining about high feed costs? There you go.

[Sacajaweau]

feed our beef corn....and get those herds up.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "...battered by debt...."

This is the same theme played out across companies, governments and more. Take on debt, become unable to pay it back, and presto! Crisis.

Lean years and fat years is an old story. Save up, don't load up with debt. Never load up with debt.

[ridesthemiles]

TOO MUCH IS GROWN FOR ETHANOL, IMO

[escapefromboston]

Well that would make too much sense

[Governor Dinwiddie]

If we spray Agent Orange on Asian rice paddies, it will increase the demand for American corn.

[Sacajaweau]

I agree...

I think as we open up the fossil fuels again and windmills and solar farms go out of business, we can revert back to corn for food...and only food.

[jjotto]

https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/corn-as-cattle-feed-vs-human-food.html

...corn grain typically does not make up a large portion of cattle diets until the end of their life cycle in a period called “finishing,” when cattle are often housed in a feedlot...

...once the entire lifetime feed intake of cattle is accounted for (meaning all the feed they consume from birth to harvest), corn accounts for only approximately 7 percent of the animal’s diet. The other 93 percent of the animal’s lifetime diet will consist largely of feed that is inedible to humans...

[Jamestown1630]

I agree. It has always seemed wrong to me to use a food as fuel.

[Sacajaweau]

They were talking about the cattle problem on an ag show this morning...very good....will take a couple years to get the herd numbers up.

So in the meantime, I can see where Trump is coming from....and that he is concerned with our pocketbook.

Cuz Biden and the Dems surely didn't give a damn.

[PrairieLady2]

I totally agree with that! When I can get alcohol-free gas, I do. Consequently, my milage improves by 6-9 mph. Alcohol in gas is a farce. Iowa grows a lot of corn intended for gas.

[rexthecat]

I try to always pay extra for non-ethanol gasoline. It’s too bad we got hooked on using our corn for fuel, it really isn’t that great for our vehicles.

[Sacajaweau]

I saw a 100 acre farm switch from common vegetable like beans, ....totally....to corn because they opened a plant nearby to turn it into fuel. It’s why beans are $2.00/lb....which is insane.

[Karl Spooner]

.

[escapefromboston]

I understand ranchers being upset but we are at a 74 year low in terms of cattle. I think it might take awhile to get those numbers back up

[crz]

Boy o boy. All the keyboard experts that havent even stepped foot onto a farm.

$2500.00 per 30 acres clear. Thats the profit for soybeans-2024. This year its ZERO, for many farms.
How many of you keyboard experts can live on...lets say a farm 5 times more than 30 acres. 150 acres..thats 12,500 wages for the year. Lets double that. 25 grand. Out of that you pay ALL OF YOUR PERSONAL EXPENSES.

Got some real “smart” jackasses on this site.

[Sacajaweau]

They Cattle people said two years. In the meantime...we’ll do a little importing to take care of our immediate needs.

[BatGuano]

Reuters.com? Mmmm.

[tired&retired]

I amazed at the increase in corn per acre over the years.

From 1866, the first year USDA began to publish corn yield estimates, through about 1936, yields of open-pollinated corn varieties in the U.S. were fairly stagnant and only averaged about 26 bu/ac.

We are now at about 180 bu/ac.

Some speculated that a third “miracle” of corn grain yield improvement would occur with the advent and rapid adoption of transgenic hybrid traits (insect resistance, herbicide resistance) by U.S. corn farmers beginning in the mid-1990’s. In fact, a number of seed industry ‘experts’ confidently promised that average US corn grain yield would approach 300 bushels per acre by 2030 due to these advances in biotechnology.