Farmageddon
A News Link Round-Up
Here is the latest weekly round-up of links, with a heads-up on a building agricultural crisis and follow-ups on the latest news in Ukraine and Iran, and on the national gerrymandering spree, immigration, the conservatives movement’s adulation of Donald Trump, the state of the conservative media—and the grim impact of “MAHA” health quackery.
A reminder about this News Link Round-Up format: The main headlines are there to provide context and perhaps a little commentary, the headlines with the links are the original headlines from the articles, and the quotations beneath are extracts from the articles.
Farmageddon
Steep Fertilizer and Fuel Prices Could Squeeze US Farmers for Months to Come, Economists Warn
The price of key agricultural necessities such as diesel and nitrogen fertilizer has soared since the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade passageway, has largely been choked off amid the war in Iran.
The price of urea, a major nitrogen-based fertilizer, shot up to nearly $700 per ton in late April from $455 per ton on Feb. 27, the day before the war in Iran broke out. On-highway diesel prices clocked around $5.35 a gallon in late April, a hike from the $3.81 a gallon reported the week the war began….
A recent survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation found that about 70 percent of farmers nationwide who responded report they are unable to afford all the fertilizer they need.
In the Midwest, farmers are better prepared for the planting season than in other regions. The Farm Bureau survey found that 67 percent of farmers reported booking fertilizer in advance. In the South, the most affected region, only 19 percent of farmers reported pre-booking fertilizer….
Parum also warned that reducing fertilizer use may not be feasible for everyone and could lead to lower yields.
“We have pretty good storage right now across corn and soybeans, so it might not be that big of a deal, but depending on how long this conflict goes on, if we see really high reductions of yields, it could be a pretty big shock to global supply,” Parum said.
The Watsons had been dairy farming since before the Civil War—one of dozens of Watson farms that had spread across northern Pennsylvania over the generations, and then, like dairy farms everywhere, gradually disappeared. The number of dairy farms in the United States had fallen to fewer than 25,000 from a peak of nearly 700,000 in the 1970s. Milk prices had barely risen in half a century, held down by overproduction and a handful of large corporations that dominated the dairy market. The costs of running a family farm had skyrocketed by as much as 500 percent.
Brad had supported Donald Trump in 2024 in part because Trump promised to change all that by becoming “the most pro-farmer president you’ve ever had.” Instead, new tariffs had cut into Brad’s potential export market and the emerging war in Iran had sent gas and fertilizer prices surging by as much as 70 percent. He was losing thousands of dollars each month and falling behind on his feed bill, until he made the call he’d been dreading his whole career. He dialed up an auction house to arrange the Watson family’s final dairy sale last month….
Brad had believed that Trump might help them, and he appreciated the frustration in Trump’s speeches about America’s decline. Brian was more cynical. He’d seen generations of politicians riding tractors and pandering to rural America as more farmers went under….
Farm bankruptcies across the country had risen 55 percent in 2024, 46 percent in 2025, and another 70 percent so far in 2026 as nearly a third of the world’s fertilizer exports were impacted by conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz.
So How Are the Strongmen’s Wars Going?
Trump’s Abrupt U-Turn on a Plan to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz Came After Backlash from Allies
