Video: A Farming Crisis Is Causing Trouble For Farmers

NOXUBEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – The Mississippi State Extension Service says a farm crisis may have silently begun in the United States starting back in 2013.

Farmers play a big role in America, and when their economy slows down, everything else does too.

What is an agricultural crisis?

“It’s costing more to produce the crop, than what we’re making in return when we sell the crop,” says Supervisory Research Geneticist, Dr. Johnie N. Jenkins.

Since the 1800’s, farming has been in Jack Huerkamp’s genes. He says this is how the slump takes a dig at farmers.

“When you look at what you make, there’s yield, it’s half of it, but price is the other half, so yield times price is what we receive, so it’s 50%, it’s a lot of it.”

Huerkamp says it cuts even deeper at newer farmers and ones with a lot of borrowed money.

“I own a lot of land, a lot of it’s paid for and I don’t have a rent payment. I don’t have a land payment on it. That makes a huge difference. Equipment is mostly paid for, not totally because we’re always trading and we did trade a little bit more, but if you’re borrowing everything, it makes a huge difference.”

Jenkins says tough times for farmers eventually find their way from the fields to families.

“When you look at the economics of it and consider all of the costs involved, included the cost of the money that you borrow and the return you get on the investment, it’s not been positive for the past three years, and the farmers can’t stay in business this way, and without farmers in business, our grocery stores get empty.”

Huerkamp says he’s seen tougher times for farmers, but those who want to stay in business need to pay attention.

“Cut down on your expenses, hold back on money that you spend, work on yields. That’s one thing we can do and study prices really hard, trying to catch the top that you can catch, even if it’s not good, you know, try to get what you can.”