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Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026
National/International
US farm debt is at a record. Official data might be undercounting it
10/7/26 Reuters
A 2024 peer-reviewed study from Kansas State University, USDA's Economic Research Service and the National Credit Union Administration analyzed more than 4.4 million equipment liens across 14 farm states from 2001 through 2019. They found that equipment debt issued by non-traditional lenders was as much as four times larger than USDA data showed.
"How can lenders, policymakers, regulators and key stakeholders accurately assess debt volumes and farm financial stress when neither is reported for many lenders that serve the most stressed borrowers?" said Ifft, one of the authors.
Fertilizer prices likely to remain elevated
10/7/26 RFD-TV
Kansas State University agricultural economist Gregg Ibendahl says farmers were able to avoid some of this year’s higher prices by purchasing fertilizer earlier, but that likely will not be the case heading into 2027.
“Fertilizer prices went up a lot this spring, but the one good thing about that, I guess, not really a good thing about that, but the one benefit to farmers is a lot of farmers had their fertilizer purchased earlier last fall before the prices really went up. A lot of farmers really were able to avoid the higher fertilizer prices for this 2026 crop. That’s not going to be the case going into 2027. Fertilizer prices are already elevated; they’re likely to go even higher, so that’s going to be a big difference when you look at the cost of production for 2027. Farmers are going to have to pay the higher fertilizer prices."