I spend a lot of my time on the road talking with the hardworking men and women, like you, who keep this country running. This year, the message has been unmistakable: our farmers are hurting. As many have experienced, falling commodity prices, rising input costs, and mounting uncertainty are creating a crisis that threatens thousands of hardworking family farms.
We needed to amplify those concerns and turn those conversations into a clear, data-driven picture that policymakers and the public could not ignore. That’s why we commissioned the 2026 State of the American Farmer report. The goal was simple: to quantify the struggles farmers are facing and identify challenges. The report confirmed what I have been hearing across the countryside, our industry is hurting.
Our neighbors are going out of business at nearly record rates, as farm bankruptcies rose 60% last year, in part due to rising labor and input costs and falling commodity prices. Unless things change, 60% of farmers question whether farming will remain viable in the future.
Here in Missouri, those numbers aren’t abstract. They represent neighbors, family farms, and communities built around agriculture. As litigation and inconsistent labeling efforts threaten access to critical crop protection tools, Missouri farmers like you face unprecedented risk to their bottom lines. In fact, our report found that 60% of farmers say unclear product labeling requirements are harming their businesses.
When rules change or activists try to dictate how to farm, it adds risk to an operation that already carries more than enough.
In many areas, farmers understand that severe weather has stripped away inches of topsoil. They have adapted, turning to conservation practices like no-till to preserve soil health long term. As you know, those systems depend on reliable access to effective crop protection tools such as glyphosate. Without them, farmers are left with fewer workable options and greater uncertainty.
And when Missouri farmers lose, Missouri families at the grocery store feel it too. Higher input costs and lower yields don’t stay on the farm—they ripple through the entire food supply chain. Without access to these tools, food inflation could more than double.
I was grateful to see President Trump take decisive action by invoking the Defense Production Act. The Executive Order recognized glyphosate as a matter of national security. But a temporary solution isn’t enough; farmers and agriculture as a whole deserve long-term certainty.
That means advancing legislation that ensures farmers’ continued access to EPA-approved crop protection tools and reinforces the integrity of the agency’s rigorous, science-based regulatory process.
The Farm Bill includes language to ensure federal labeling uniformity, and it passed the House Agriculture Committee on March 5. Enacting this provision will provide nationwide certainty for producers—rather than forcing them to navigate a patchwork of conflicting state rules.
Growing up on a farm and working alongside farmers every day, I know you are among the hardest-working people in this country. And in conversation after conversation, I hear the same concern: farmers want stability.
Stability that comes from knowing the tools they rely on will remain available. Stability that comes from commonsense, science-based regulations that protect those tools from courtroom politics. Stability that allows farmers to plan, invest, and pass their operations down to the next generation.
Right now, only 55% of farmers feel confident they’ll be able to do that.
The 2026 State of the American Farmer report makes one thing clear: we are at a turning point. The time is now for all of us to stand together with our farmers and confront these challenges head-on.
Elizabeth Burns-Thompson serves as Executive Director of the Modern Ag Alliance, where she advocates for U.S. farmers’ continued access to essential crop protection tools.
