COVID-19 is Likely Leading more U.S. Farmers to File for Bankruptcy

May 21, 2020

By Andy Uhler

Mitchell Hora is a seventh-generation family farmer in Washington County, Iowa. He plants corn and soybeans and said finances were tough even before this crisis. It costs more to grow the crops than he can charge for them.

“You run the numbers and it’s like, holy smokes, like how does this even get close to working?” Hora said.

He said most farmers in the United States can’t think about the future or invest in their farms because they’re living harvest to harvest.

“I gotta have maximum revenue coming in so I can pay off my debt, pay the next interest payment. And that is not good,” he said.

Long before the coronavirus pandemic hit, American farmers were struggling. They lost important export markets because of the U.S.-China trade war and growing international competition. Then this health crisis emerged and disrupted an already volatile supply chain. That has agricultural economists predicting a rise in farm bankruptcies across the United States.

Part of the problem is that 80% of farm assets are tied up in land values, and those values have been declining for the past few years. And now, COVID-19 has disrupted farmers’ supply chains.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.