A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping today. A likely request from Trump will be for China to buy more American farm products. China has not always delivered on similar promises. An increase in exports would be welcome for American farmers, who are coming into the fall harvest facing big expenses and an uncertain bottom line. Here's NPR's Scott Horsley.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Rick Telesz raises soybeans, corn and beef cattle on about 700 acres in Western Pennsylvania. As the days get shorter, Telesz is getting ready for the autumn harvest.
RICK TELESZ: As long as winter doesn't show up here in the next couple of weeks and the temperatures kind of cool down and dry up a little, my soybeans - they look promising right now.
HORSLEY: Soybean prices are up this year compared to last. But even with a good crop, Telesz says, he'll be lucky to just break even.
TELESZ: Am I going to make money this year? To be honest, I hope the harvest is good enough that I can pay for all those inputs I had this spring and summer.
HORSLEY: Inputs like fertilizer, which cost 15% more this year than last, and diesel fuel, which cost up to 80% more. Telesz is paying about $6 a gallon for diesel, and his combine burns through about 150 gallons a day.
TELESZ: It's a cost that a farmer can't pass on. You take, like, your trucking industry - it's just added to the freight. But a farmer - it's just an added cost he just has to absorb. It's real. It's painful.
HORSLEY: A lot of fuel and fertilizer comes from the Middle East, and prices have soared because of the U.S. war with Iran. The trade war with China has also been a headache. China is historically the third-biggest market for U.S. farm exports, but the country slashed its purchases last year in retaliation for President Trump's tariffs. Trade watcher Chad Bown told an audience at the Peterson Institute for International Economics this week - farm sales to China this year have only partially recovered.
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CHAD BOWN: Soybeans are coming back a little bit. But currently, they're at much, much lower levels than they were pre-Trump 2.0. And for all of the other products - cotton, wheat, pork, beef - the exports were devastated in 2025, and there's no evidence of them coming back.
HORSLEY: The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that farmers will earn more money this year for their soybeans, corn and cotton, either by selling more bushels and bales or at higher prices. But much of that extra income will be gobbled up by rising expenses. Economist Faith Parum of the American Farm Bureau Federation says farmers raising all the major row crops are expected to lose money for the fourth year in a row.
FAITH PARUM: We've had a tough time in the farm economy. Production expenses really skyrocketed. They're paying way more to grow a crop, and they're not making near enough for it.
HORSLEY: Nationwide, some 200,000 farms have gone out of business since 2020.
JOE PEIFFER: Farmers are saying, we're ready to throw in the towel. We're sick of working our back ends off and losing money.
HORSLEY: Joe Peiffer is a bankruptcy attorney who works with farmers in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Farm bankruptcies are up 19% from a year ago, but most farmers are reluctant to quit the business altogether.
PEIFFER: Most farmers will farm till a banker won't loan them another dime.
HORSLEY: Farmers who own land can try to buy time by selling off some of their property, but Peiffer says that's usually a last resort.
PEIFFER: The hardest thing to get a farmer to do is to sell part of the family farm. I can go buy another tractor, buy another combine. But I can't buy that 40 acres again 'cause it probably won't come on the market while I'm still in business.
HORSLEY: Peiffer says most farmers will do whatever they can to stay in business, hoping that costs go down, crop prices go up and that somehow next year's harvest will be better than this one.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
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