Trump's Iran war is pushing American farmers to the brink

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Trump’s Iran war is pushing American farmers to the brink
Skyrocketing costs, unfair markets, and poor policy are pressuring farmers thanks to the ongoing conflict

By Garrett Owen
National Affairs Fellow
Published May 15, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) The rain in Windsor, North Carolina, is way behind schedule. Despite the seat of Bertie County being crisscrossed with rivers and creeks and lying on the estuary of the Albemarle Sound, local farmer Charles Harden reckons the area is suffering from a 12-inch rain shortfall in the first five months of 2026.

“It’s been terrible dry,” Harden told Salon. Windsor usually gets about 50 inches of rain a year. That’s bad news for his company, Clovergrass Produce, and its crop of soybeans, cucumbers, peanuts and corn plus his herd of beef cattle. “We’re starting off this year in a drought,” Harden said. “We ended last year in a drought.”

“Right now is harder than any time in the history of our country for agriculture,” Harden said. He should have some idea of hard times — Harden is a ninth-generation North Carolinian farmer, his family having been in Bertie County since 1771.

....(snip)....

Then, Trump joined Israel in war against Iran, causing trade through the Strait of Hormuz to come to a screeching halt. Prices of everything from plastics and helium to fertilizer products have skyrocketed. About half of the world’s agricultural nitrogen-based urea fertilizer supply passes through the strait, along with 30% of global ammonia exports.

The price of chemicals necessary to produce fertilizer — phosphorus, nitrogen and ammonia, among others — has risen sharply since the start of the war, putting even more pressure on the nation’s small and independent farmers and producers. When the Iran war began, fertilizer prices jumped from around $400 per ton in early February to nearly $600 per ton in early March. It’s only risen since then. .......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/15/trumps-iran-war-is-pushing-american-farmers-to-the-brink/