Three Strikes: Inside the Squeeze Breaking America’s Wheat Belt
Scott Irlbeck’s question — “Am I out?” — isn’t just one farmer’s frustration. It’s a question being asked, in one form or another, across five states right now. To understand why, you need to look at what’s actually driving the costs.
The fuel problem
Since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in late February, the cost of farm diesel has climbed a staggering 72%, according to prepared testimony the Kentucky Farm Bureau gave to a U.S. Senate agriculture committee this year. That’s not a typo — that’s nearly three-quarters more expensive to run the same tractors and combines farmers have always used. Diesel isn’t optional for a farm operation; it’s the fuel that plants, sprays, and harvests every acre. When it spikes that hard, there’s no cutting back — only absorbing the cost.
The fertilizer problem
Fertilizer has gotten just as ugly. Urea — one of the major fertilizers produced in the Gulf region — has jumped about 55% in price. Another key nitrogen-based fertilizer is up roughly 33%. For farmers, that means one of two things: pay dramatically more for the same inputs, or plant this season with less fertilizer than the crop actually needs — and accept a smaller yield as the tradeoff.
That’s exactly what a lot of farmers are choosing to do. A survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the country’s leading farm lobby, found that most farmers simply cannot afford all the fertilizer they need for this growing season. It’s not a matter of preference — it’s a matter of what the budget can absorb.
Interestingly, how farmers are handling this varies a lot by region. Farmers in the Midwest, who tend to rotate corn and soybean plantings and typically buy fertilizer well in advance, mostly locked in their 2026 supplies before prices spiked. Farmers in the South and Northeast weren’t as lucky — many don’t even have storage facilities for fertilizer, so they buy closer to planting time, right when prices are worst.
Voices from across the region
Irlbeck isn’t the only farmer wrestling with this. In Tulsa County, Oklahoma, farmer Tommy Salisbury — who grows wheat, sorghum and soybeans — said the higher input costs completely wiped out the benefit of a $12 billion federal aid package meant to help farmers absorb the fallout from trade tariffs. As he put it, farmers are paying today’s sky-high input prices while getting paid crop prices that feel like they’re stuck decades in the past.
In West Texas, cotton and wheat farmer Kody Carson decided not to buy fertilizer in advance for his 2,400 acres — and said he might skip it entirely this year. His winter wheat yield collapsed from an expected 80 bushels per acre down to an estimated 18 to 20. As he put it, it’s hard to justify spending on expensive fertilizer when you don’t even know if you’ll have a crop worth fertilizing.
Then there’s Tom Gregory, who grows cotton, corn and sorghum in Petersburg, Texas. Between February and April alone, his fertilizer costs jumped from $402 a ton to $558 a ton. He’s still planting — because for him, farming isn’t just a business, it’s a family tradition — but he’s applying fertilizer as sparingly as he possibly can. After years of trying to outrun rising costs by producing bigger harvests, he says that strategy has quietly stopped working, first because of drought, and now because of price. These days, he says he’s leaning on faith, family, and staying active just to get through it.
The bigger picture
The numbers back up what these farmers are feeling on the ground. More than 60% of the continental United States — an area home to roughly 153 million people — is currently in drought, up sharply from 43% at the start of the year and just 33% a year before that. Agronomists warn that in the hardest-hit areas, even rain now wouldn’t undo the damage already done to this year’s wheat.
Federal officials acknowledge the pain. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins has said farmers are facing real hardship at a moment when the broader farm economy is already struggling, though the agency maintains its focus is on boosting domestic fertilizer production to bring costs down over time.
For farmers like Irlbeck, Salisbury, Carson, and Gregory, that’s a long-term fix for a problem that’s hitting them right now, this season, in the middle of a drought they can’t control and price spikes they didn’t cause. Their choices boil down to painful math: plant less, fertilize less, gamble on a smaller harvest — or risk not harvesting at all.
Three strikes doesn’t always mean you’re out. But for a lot of farmers across the Plains this year, it’s starting to feel that way.
