Farm Bankruptcies Increase 55% in 2024

Mar 06, 2025

There were 216 farm bankruptcies filed in 2024 — up 55% from 2023, according to a Feb. 20, 2025 Market Intel report from the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). While that is a big jump from the previous year, it is still 64% lower than 2019’s the all-time high of 599 filings.

Samantha Ayoub, the AFBF associate economist who wrote the report, notes that 2024 is the end of a 4-year downward trend in bankruptcies, which she says, "appears to mark a turning point in long-term financial health.”

One dealer recently shared with Farm Equipment that in his region 3 of the largest farms have gone under, and he says rumor is more are to come.

From a regional standpoint all regions but one — the Southwest — saw an increase in Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings in 2024. The Southwest region saw a 14% decrease in filings vs. 2023 when it was the only region that saw an increase in filings. In the Northwest region, the number of Chapter 12 filings doubled in 2024. The Northwest and Southwest were for the fewest filings in 2024 at 12, according to the AFBF report.

In the Midwest, Chapter 12 Bankruptcy filings were up 69% in 2024 to 71. The Southeast followed closely behind with 62 filings, a 55% increase.

Ayoub writes: “Row-crop markets have experienced sharp decreases in cash receipts for three years, with expected further declines of over 4% and 6% in corn and soybean receipts, respectively, in 2025. Cotton had a nearly 24% decrease in cash receipts in 2024 but is the only major row crop forecast to post an increase in cash receipts in 2025. Chapter 12 bankruptcies lag declines in farm income as farms must exhaust their ability to pay back debt before filing. It is likely that the downward trend in net farm market returns, combined with even longer-term declines in government payments in 2024 due to an outdated farm bill, drove more farmers in the Grain Belt and South to their last resort of farm bankruptcy in 2024.”

Looking at filings by state, California had the most with 17, while there were 13 states/territories that had none. According to the report, 28 states and territories had an increase in filings in 2024 vs. 19 that had an increase in 2023. Michigan had the largest increase in filings with 12 cases, up from zero in 2023. 8 other states and territories had double-digit filings in 2024: California (17), Nebraska (15), Kansas (10), Arkansas (16), Louisiana (13), Puerto Rico (12), Georgia (11) and New York (10).

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators