Tariffs, war, and now a historic drought have converged into a "perfect storm" for U.S. farmers and food prices
Posted by fortune@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 74 comments
American farmers entered the spring planting season knowing fertilizer would be more expensive, fuel would be costly, and labor would be short. With the growing season now in full swing, they can add a record-setting drought and scarce water supplies to that list of headaches.
An overlapping series of headwinds—ranging from climate to economics and geopolitics—have made farming in the U.S. an exceptionally brutal profession in recent months. The headaches started last year when the Trump administration’s sweeping tariff regime warped the country’s trade policy, raising input costs for farmers and crowding out international buyers. This year, the war in the Middle East has caused the global fuel and fertilizer trade to sputter, further squeezing farmers’ margins.
And as spring continues, 61% of the continental U.S. is under moderate to exceptional drought conditions, according to NOAA, including 97% of the Southeast and two-thirds of the western U.S. For farmers, the upshot is reduced yields and potentially failed harvests. For everyone else, the towering pile of crises likely means higher food prices for the rest of the year.
“What’s unique about the current moment is that you have this perfect storm of factors,” David Ortega, an agricultural economist at Michigan State University, told Fortune.
Read more: https://fortune.com/2026/04/21/farmers-perfect-storm-drought-fertilizer-fuel-prices-tariffs/
Isaiah_The_Bun@reddit
frik ya! this summer is gonna be lit.
TWILIGHTANTHROPOCENE@reddit
Gonna have to stock up on canned goods and ammo, if I can afford either…
Isaiah_The_Bun@reddit
lmao ammo? is that for protection or stealing food? or hunting?
TWILIGHTANTHROPOCENE@reddit
Protection most likely. I live in the most heavily-armed nation in the world. Gotta assume that raiders are only a matter of time.
switchsk8r@reddit
at least perhaps once ammo is used up it'll be hard to find and make more. and some ammo can expire
InitialAd4125@reddit
"and some ammo can expire"
It's got a fairly long life expectancy and people tend to have a fair bit plus the reloaders. Although if you can't get the components then if you have the skill parts and equipment black powder ends up becoming your best bet although I don't know many people who know how to make percussion caps so then it's just flintlocks which at that point if you haven't got a tone of people or are already rather good with them it kind of makes more sense to switch to a crossbow or bow.
switchsk8r@reddit
hmm interesting, thank you
InitialAd4125@reddit
Like certain rounds are going to run out faster then others and it honestly all depends on what a community can realistically source. Like 22lr one of the absolute smallest rounds you can buy ammo in is typically 50 rounds for the smallest boxes but you can easily get bulk deals of thousands and possibly even 10,000 rounds.
switchsk8r@reddit
omw to join one of those communities right now......
InitialAd4125@reddit
I honestly don't even know which areas if any would have all necessary materials and infrastructure to be self sustaining enough to make even percussion cap or black powder loaded rounds of ammo. Like even when black powder existed supply chains were still a thing.
filmguy36@reddit
Yes
Isaiah_The_Bun@reddit
nice name btw.
HardNut420@reddit
When I go to work all people ever talk about is the latest sports game it's kinda funny in a f*cked up sort of way we got all theses crisis in front of us and all we talk about is sports lamo
Vid-Master@reddit
until they walk into the grocery store and the shelves are empty, they lose their job, the internet stops working, they will not care or change. Thats what the people in power are counting on
NolanR27@reddit
I never understood what there is to talk about. Like ok, the Buttfuckers won, what else needs to be said?
DLTMIAR@reddit
Do you think there is no nuance between winning or losing?
TWILIGHTANTHROPOCENE@reddit
Laquavious Bootycheeks just got slammed in the pooper
huehuehuehuehuuuu@reddit
Shit is still affordable enough for the masses. When it is not, it’d be too late.
vand3lay1ndustries@reddit
Weather too, but the minute you mention a climate disaster then they change the subject.
KerouacMyBukowski_@reddit
Maybe it's just me projecting, but I think people do know something is terribly wrong with the environment but are just hiding/denying it. I think it's both self protection and wanting to be professional at work but deep down I think a lot of people know something is fundamentally wrong with the world and the weather.
vand3lay1ndustries@reddit
"Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration - whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday - I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.
And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and injustice...intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told...if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words - they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek...then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament. And together, we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgot!"
BayouGal@reddit
Bread & circuses keep the masses from getting too riled up about how shitty our lives have become.
Bread is going to be scarce.
afternever@reddit
Baseball Basketball Wiener dog
Sinfluencer666@reddit
SPORTS
JustTheBeerLight@reddit
Getting high. Buying stuff off the internet.
SushiAndKetamine@reddit
Go Sports! My favorite team!!
rematar@reddit
r/unexpectedviagraboys
mikemaca@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-hS2r7v3Iw
Nom-De-Gruyere@reddit
Welcome to Sports Roundup, bringing you all the important sports news. Of course todays big sporting fixture was the Sportsball semi final, with competition favourites Sportedonia facing the upstart contenders the Sportans. Throughout the first half the Sportedonia team sported hard and displayed their trademark impenetrable defence. However in the second half the Sportans succeeded in sporting even harder and accumulated many sportpoints in the closing minutes of the sporting. The Spotadonians sported most sportingly, but with an unnasailable lead, the Sportans won the sporting by 3492 heads and 743 hands. Spotadonian team captain Philip of Sportadon conceded "Today the sportier team sported better and we will have to work on our sporting for next season." From the Sportan captain, simply "This. Is. SPORTA!" Next week, Sportans face previous Sportslords The Sportacons at the Sportodome, Home of Sportsball. Are you excited to see who lifts the sacred Sportstrophybucket? I know I am!
Now heres Tim with the weather.
shook70@reddit
ITS RAINING SIDEWAYS
Deguilded@reddit
DENTAL PLAN! ... Lisa needs bracers
the_Dorkness@reddit
Short shorts
Meltlilith1@reddit
Because they think everything will be magically solved like every major issue they've ignored their whole life.
Narcisistagohome@reddit
Old problem. Panem et Circenses (Bread and Circus) as the Roman said you need to keep the people uninvolved in politics.
deepasleep@reddit
Well the transition to taking about the latest Death Race and Hunger Games finals will seem quite natural to these people.
tedsmitts@reddit
If one of the missing fertilizers is urea, sports could help. Hook up the stadium urinals to a processing facility, there should be room in the massive parking lots.
coinpile@reddit
I get it tho. We’re pretty screwed, but living our days just talking about how screwed we are is not how I want to spend all of my time.
HardNut420@reddit
You are just sadating yourself when you do that you might as well be going to church
Grand-Page-1180@reddit
You should hear what Cunk on Earth has to say about people who watch sports ;-)
Sol_Infra@reddit
Same here. Except my co-workers are worried about trans gender Mexicans trying to abduct their kids or whatever nonsense right-wing media is peddling these days.
They'll worry about everything except WTF they need to be worried about.
Right-Cause9951@reddit
I have Newsmax on regularly due to the lack of news around the clock station on TV. The shit they shovel into MAGA mouths is absolutely terrifying.
Hour-Stable2050@reddit
Let me translate: the rich will pay what they must for scarce food while the poor starve.
wwaxwork@reddit
You know what will help during a drought. More data centers.
valas76@reddit
its like climate change is real
Jukka_Sarasti@reddit
American farmers overwhelmingly vote for the party that rejects science and climate change, and now they're reaping the whirlwind, but so are we. They lose their historical family farms to avaristic investment firms controlled by the same people who donate money to the same party that sold them the line of bullshit in the first place. And so it goes...
Of course, I fully expect them to double-down on their own poor choices and keep relying on aggressive ignorance as a shield against facts.
Curious-Row2410@reddit
Correct, fuck these morons. If I'm going down with them I can at least laugh at their suffering.
JagBak73@reddit
They'll find a way to blame the people they hate for their woes instead of looking in the mirror and mulling over how they fucked up by voting for the tangerine turd.
TWILIGHTANTHROPOCENE@reddit
Nah…god did this to smite us for allowing trans people to exist.
/s just in case
valas76@reddit
But they culturally existed for year in cultures devoid of your "god". So why now?
TWILIGHTANTHROPOCENE@reddit
See above “/s just in case”
valas76@reddit
sorry was not picking up the SIC, my apologies
Effective-Smell-540@reddit
Don't make jokes that might come true
ApplesBananasRhinoc@reddit
Oh and on top of that our government releases a cartoon saying climate change isn’t real.
Julian_Thorne@reddit
no to mention the looming BOE
takesthebiscuit@reddit
You mean the new shipping channel to speed oil and gas between USA and Russia 🤑🤑🤑
🫠
darkpsychicenergy@reddit
Neither USA nor Russia needs fossil fuels from the other, they’re competitors in fossil fuels, not trade partners. It’ll be more like a new war zone, if anything.
AggravatingMark1367@reddit
More war! Just what we need
Comfortably-Numb2026@reddit
Not just American farmers…
rematar@reddit
If you're referring to farmers, I suspect any who have moisture will make bank. Supply and demand should drive prices high enough to cover the increases in fuel and fertilizer costs for some of them.
loralailoralai@reddit
Trumps tariffs ‘crowded out international buyers’? Unless crowded out has a different meaning there that’s a weird thing to say. Turned off international buyers maybe. Not ‘crowded out’
Narcisistagohome@reddit
Welcome to the Anthropocene's Polycrisis, where you suffer while the oligarchs play Polymarket.
scattershotdreams@reddit
They left out ICE terrorizing our farm labor. 😬
mikemaca@reddit
I disagree it is due to a "perfect storm" implying a rare black swan event. Everything in the storm is connected to the same root cause, this all was foreseeable and predicted, and the storm is being engineered.
Wave_of_Anal_Fury@reddit
So (most) US farmers are getting what they voted for?
Trump support grew in America’s top farming counties despite first-term trade war
Farming-dependent counties rallied behind Trump with an average of nearly 78% support.
https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/trump-election-farming-counties-trade-war/
And it's not just the US. Farmers tend to be pretty conservative politically, which means voting for parties that are doubling down on fossil fuels.
WastelandEnjoyer@reddit
This reminds me of a scene from season 2 of the show called paradise where "the president" (James Marsden) in that show is given a tour of his super secret bunker for when the world ends and they were going over how secure everything is -- and the president goes through how rome collapsed and asked "what happens if everything lines up just perfectly?" and they had no real answer.
WloveW@reddit
Well they certainly owned the libs. Got everything they ever voted for. Now that they are running the show everything is perfect.
behavebeaver@reddit
Unfortunately, not just farmers. Beyond the impact on producers, these compounding crises are hammering us everyday consumers with soaring food costs and squeezing international buyers who rely on stable trade. It usually comes down to the most vulnerable populations being forced to shoulder the heaviest burdens of systemic instability while resources continue to dwindle.
kingfofthepoors@reddit
I remember 5 - 6 years ago being in here with my other account telling everyone by 2029 we are fucked. Everything is collapsing in real time now. The end is nigh
RichieLT@reddit
Welcome to the final show, I hope you’re wearing your best clothes.
oldcreaker@reddit
Why will they say it's hard on farmers, but not when it's hard on us and refer to changes in food prices instead? As if it's not making it harder on any of us?
filmguy36@reddit
Because most of the morons in this nation think their fruit, vegetables and grains come from the magic supermarket and not from actual farmers
Someones_Dream_Guy@reddit
You're too poor to count as people.
Someones_Dream_Guy@reddit
Good.
idreamofkitty@reddit
Fertilizer price spikes + Super el nino + drought
US food production is getting hit from all directions.
https://www.collapse2050.com/2026-super-el-nino-threatens-global-crops/