MONROE, La. — Four generations of the Nelson family have farmed the same stretch of Louisiana soil, chasing a version of the American dream measured in acres, harvests and hard work. Now, like hundreds of other family farms across the country, they are on the brink of bankruptcy — and some are rethinking who, if anyone, they will vote for in November.
“I don’t want to have to file bankruptcy,” said Willis Nelson, 34, the second-eldest of four sons who work the land. “But the way it’s looking, it’s just, it’s tough, you know, very tough on us.”
Farm bankruptcies surged nearly 46% in 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, with the heaviest concentration of filings in the Midwest and South. Southern farmers have been hit especially hard: Only 19% of producers there secured their fertilizer purchases before the season began, the lowest share of any region in the country.
In outlining the conditions that have placed the Nelson family’s 3,500-acre farm in Monroe, Louisiana, on a path toward potential financial ruin, Nelson distinguished between “God” and “man-made decisions.”
A historic drought across the South devastated last year’s corn and soybean yields, and a dangerous stretch of tornadoes and hurricanes across the region inflicted more damage. That falls into the first category.
He is more troubled by the second: a trade war last year that resulted in China significantly decreasing its purchases of soybeans — a staple crop on the Nelson family farm — and the war in Iran, which nearly doubled fertilizer prices compared with last year. Costs are up, and sales are down.
“That’s when it really hurts the most,” Nelson said. “Because it’s self-inflicted. We got trade wars. We got the war in Iran. We got low commodity prices. Just ain’t fair for us right now, you know? Yeah, they give us government assistance, but it’s always a year, two years late.”
Farm bankruptcies were high during President Donald Trump’s first term, but dipped during Joe Biden’s years in office. With Trump back in office, they have spiked again, jumping 46% between 2024 and 2025 as economic woes from pandemic-era supply chain disruptions and grain shortages caused by the war in Ukraine met new financial headwinds caused by Trump’s tariff policies and a $20 billion bailout of Argentina that spurred China to reduce its U.S. agricultural imports.
What distinguishes this downturn from past agricultural crises — including the brutal farm collapse of the 1980s — is that this time, farms of all ages are going belly-up, said National Farmers Union President Rob Larew.
“It seems to be hitting farmers across the farm life span,” Larew said. “This is going to have an impact, not only on farmers that leave farming today, the next generation of farmers, but those folks who are considering going into it.”
Fate Sparrow, a fourth-generation farmer in Dooly County, Georgia, said he has decided his farm will end with him. He is not giving his son a chance to inherit it.
Sparrow said he knows four farmers in Dooly County alone that have gone out of business since January. He said his own operation has lost $700,000 over the past year. For some farmers, the only response to rising production costs is a decrease in production.
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“We are not shooting for the highest yield, especially on corn,” explained Nelson, the farmer in Louisiana. “Like normally, we put 220 units out, trying to get 200 bushels of corn. This year … we’re not financially able to do that. We just don’t have the margin, the money to be able to pay for all the fertilizer we actually need. We had to cut.”
For decades, farmers like Sparrow have been among the most reliable Republican voters in the country. That may be changing.
Sparrow, a self-described “hardcore Republican,” said the economic headwinds facing U.S. farmers have convinced him and many of his fellow farmers to skip the polls altogether this November.
This alienation of reliably conservative rural voters, who have long been a backbone of the GOP electorate, could have significant ramifications for the future of Trump’s policy agenda. The GOP is aiming to flip a Senate seat in Georgia and defend its existing Senate seats in Texas, Nebraska and North Carolina. Together, those four states saw 60 farms go bankrupt in 2025.
If Democrats succeed in flipping control of both chambers of Congress, the president will likely be unable to pass significant legislation, rendering him a lame duck. For farmers like Sparrow, that result may be exactly what they’re looking for.
“As long as the government will stay out of it and let the market be like it is, and Trump will quit talking like he’s going to start importing this and importing that, we’re fine,” Sparrow said.
Nelson echoed that sentiment.
“All that we are asked for is that we have an equal playing field where we can sell our crops at a competitive price, at a great market price and we don’t have to pay a whole lot for the inputs to make this crop,” Nelson said.
“I wouldn’t want a government handout,” he added. “I want to be able to be proud of what I grow and how I grew it, and how I sell it, you know? Just give me a fair price for what I’m selling it for, and then we can move forward.”
Nnamdi Egwuonwu is a reporter for MS NOW.
Adam Hudacek is a desk associate for MS NOW covering national politics in Washington, D.C.