Chambers County farmers deal with rising costs

BY DANIEL SCHMIDT

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

CHAMBERS COUNTY — By 1:30 in the afternoon, the sun is beating down on RL&M Cattle Company near Cusseta. Jack Robertson has been hard at work since the sun came up nearly eight hours ago.

He digs through the back of a black side-by-side. He pushes past buckets, boxes and tool boxes in search of what he needs to fix a fence. After that, he and his crew will hook up trailers. That way they can hit the ground running at sunrise tomorrow when they wean calves. They’ll keep going until they’ve had enough or the sun sets or something more pressing comes up.

His scuffed brown leather boots and dark khaki pants have seen plenty of that kind of work. So too have his blue checkered shirt and sweat-stained white cutter hat.

Later on, Robertson reclines back in his chair in the farm office. He wears thin-rimmed glasses and a close-cropped handlebar mustache. He spreads all 10 fingers and presses the tips together, pondering the state of cattle farming and agriculture in general.

“The cattle industry has always been tough as far as margins go,” he said. “It’s always been a struggle just to make ends meet, and you always had to be frugal and be careful about what you spent your money on.”

RL&M runs about 1,700 mother cows on roughly 6,000 owned and rented acres and has six full-time employees. Most of its revenue comes from weaning calves and shipping them west to feedlots and backgrounders. 

Robertson said the operation is sustainable at today’s cattle prices, crediting its size and the economy of scale that comes with it. But costs have caught up in recent months as diesel now sits right at $6 a gallon. His nephew is a cotton farmer who can burn 1,100 to 1,200 gallons a day at harvest. For operations like that, a jump from $4 to $6 adds roughly $2,200 to $2,400 or more to a single day’s fuel bill.

“When you got $4 diesel and it goes to $6 or $6.50, it’s a pretty big increase in a day,” Robertson said.

Robertson is far from alone in feeling the squeeze. 

Farmers, economists and policymakers across the country are warning that American agriculture has entered a new farm crisis. It follows consecutive years of low commodity prices and high input costs. 

Economists and farm groups say tariffs and changes to federal farm programs added to that pressure in 2026, and conflict in the Middle East that sent fuel and fertilizer prices soaring just as planting season began.

A crisis building for years

The warning signs appeared before this year. In February the American Farm Bureau Federation reported that Chapter 12 family farm bankruptcies rose for a second straight year. Filings reached 315 in 2025. That was up 46% from 2024. The Southeast was hit especially hard with 105 filings. That marked a 69% increase from the previous year and trailed only the Midwest’s 121 filings.

Those numbers likely understate the problem. Chapter 12 is a form of debt restructuring built for family farms and is typically a last resort. Struggling farmers usually max out credit lines, credit cards and savings first. The law also requires a family to earn most of its income from farming.

That rules out many operations. As farm income has fallen, many farmers or their spouses also work off the farm, oftentimes to get health insurance. The USDA’s Economic Research Service found nearly half of all farmers reported having an off-farm job in 2022, and the Farm Bureau notes many family farms that don’t qualify for Chapter 12 simply close when debts become too great.

Robertson knows that arrangement well. He worked about 28 years in information systems at West Point Foundry & Machine Company while building the herd. He went full time on the farm in 2007 after the operation grew too big to run on nights and weekends. One of his partners still works off the farm.

“For a small operation, it pretty much takes an off-farm job to help support that,” he said.

Debt is climbing too. USDA projects total farm debt will rise 5.2% to a record $624.7 billion in 2026.

Closer to home the effects are harder to measure. Taylor Hart is branch manager of First South Farm Credit’s Opelika office. He said his office carries fewer production farm loans than branches near Cullman or Ozark. Land prices in East Alabama are part of the reason.

“In this area, we don’t do as many loans as South Alabama or North Alabama because land’s so expensive around here that you can’t afford farming unless you inherited that land,” Hart said.

Hart said the farmers his branch does lend to are “struggling to hold on.” Still, they keep finding ways to keep their heads above water.

“The [clients] we do have, we stay in touch with them,” Hart said. “We try to work with them and do the things we can do to help them, which may be extending some terms. Interest rates are terrible. Diesel fuel’s terrible. Fertilizer’s terrible. When I say terrible, I mean high.”

Hart said many longtime farmers saved during better years to carry them through ones like this. But the full picture won’t be clear until harvest is over. Corn just started coming out of the field, while cotton, soybeans and peanuts are still in the ground.

He added he hopes fuel prices come down and pull fertilizer costs down with them. He said he also hopes interest rates decrease and crop prices improve.

“Right now, it’s a guess,” Hart said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that if it costs you more to produce than what your commodity brings, you’re upside down. The tail’s wagging the dog, which isn’t a good place to be if you’re the dog.”

A war half a world away

On Feb. 28 the United States joined Israel in launching air strikes on Iran. The campaign became known as “Operation Epic Fury.” Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and a third of its fertilizer normally pass.

The effect reached Alabama within weeks. In late March, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System reported that diesel had jumped 51% from $2.84 to $4.30 a gallon.

Wendiam Sawadgo, an Extension agricultural economist at Auburn University, said the war hit nitrogen fertilizer the hardest. He warned the increase “may have a sizable effect on producers who have yet to purchase or price fertilizer” for the season.

Sawadgo also explained why a conflict in the Persian Gulf affects fertilizer made in America. While the U.S. produces most of its own nitrogen fertilizer, it imports natural gas from Canada to make it, and disruptions in global energy markets have spread throughout the entire energy system.

Robertson said cost increases early in the year weren’t overwhelming for RL&M. He sees much of the fertilizer spike as a market reacting to political tension rather than to real changes in supply and demand.

“A lot of it is just knee-jerk reaction type stuff,” he said. “The fundamentals really haven’t changed.”

Nationally the effects showed up quickly. A Farm Bureau survey in early April found that 70% of farmers could not afford all the fertilizer they needed for planting. The South was hit hardest. There 78% of farmers said they couldn’t afford all they needed compared with 48% in the Midwest. Fertilizer costs rose as much as 25% after the conflict began depending on the type.

A summer ceasefire briefly reopened the strait and eased prices. Fighting resumed in July.

Economists caution that the full cost may not appear until next year. Farmdoc Daily economists at the University of Illinois noted that many farmers had pre-purchased inputs for 2026 and will feel the full effect of the price increases in 2027.

John Newman of Newmans Farm Supply in LaFayette said business is up despite the broader economic difficulties. What has changed is how his customers shop.

“I’ve noticed people are buying more to last them,” Newman said. “Instead of coming in here, say, twice a week getting feed, they’ll try to make one trip and get all they need for the week or maybe two weeks.”

The reason is the cost of getting anywhere. That goes for his customers and for the feed itself.

“Freight’s the biggest issue right now, the price of fuel,” Newman said. “But you’ve got to find a way to work around it. What can you do to stop it?”

Newman said bag counts and foot traffic at his store have kept rising despite the recent climb in prices. He credits shoppers who compare prices online and find his feed runs $2 to $3 a bag cheaper than at big-box retailers.

He said he keeps prices down partly by maxing out every order. That keeps his cost per bag as low as possible.

“If they tell me I can order 960 bags, there’s 960 bags on that truck instead of 850,” he said.

His suppliers are also absorbing some of the cost. Newman said his main feed company is covering most of the fuel surcharge for now. It is betting that higher prices would cut into sales.

“They’re losing money, but they know if they go up, it’s going to affect the sale of feed,” he said.

As a result, his prices are about the same as they were three months ago with a few small adjustments. That has come out of his own margins. “I’m not making what I normally would make,” he said. “I’m just trying to ride it out.”

Customers have still noticed prices creeping up. One store employee started working there in July. She has bought feed there for her three horses for about 11 years. She said a feed she once bought for $11 a bag now costs about $17. She goes through fourteen 50-pound bags every five weeks.

Although Newman refuses to panic or speculate too much, he worries relief won’t come quickly enough even if diesel prices fall. He pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, when trucking rates went up and never fully came back down even after fuel prices fell and the initial supply shocks faded.

“If fuel does come down some, you’re not going to see it,” Newman said. “They’ve got the price up there. They aren’t going to drop it.”

Newman said he expects farmers to start shrinking their herds and flocks if high costs last several more months.“It’s going to come to the point of people saying, ‘I’ve got to eat, and I’ve got to survive. I’ve either got to get rid of some of my animals or find a way to cut my bill down some,’” he said.

That would ultimately mean fewer feed sales and a hit to his business.

Newman said the effects also reach well beyond livestock. Timber workers are also regular customers, and he said he believes the costs will eventually spread to everyone if the status quo isn’t broken sooner rather than later.

“This isn’t just hitting one category,” Newman said. “This is hitting every category you can look at.”

What farming looks like in Chambers County

Chambers County farms are mostly small and family-run with a focus on livestock. According to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture, which was taken in 2022, there were 355 farms covering 130,961 acres with an average size of 369 acres. Family farms made up 96% of all operations.

Livestock, poultry and their products made up 94% of sales. Cattle accounted for the great majority. The county sold $31.8 million in cattle and calves, which ranked first among Alabama’s 67 counties in the category. Hay is the main crop with 13,719 acres of forage. More than 56,000 acres of local farmland is woodland.

That same census shows how thin margins were even before this year’s shocks. Chambers County farms reported $36.4 million in products sold against $45.5 million in production expenses. That left a net cash farm income of negative $6.1 million once other farm-related income and government subsidies were included. The average farm lost $17,271.

The county’s farmers are also getting older. The census counted 599 producers. Of those, 192 were 65 or older, and only 70 were under 35. That leaves an open question about who will take over the land in the years ahead.

Good cattle prices, higher costs

Local cattle producers do have one advantage many row-crop farmers lack: strong prices. Tight national herd numbers have kept calf prices high. USDA’s Alabama market report for the week ending Sept. 18 showed feeder cattle selling sharply higher with active trade and encouraging demand.

Robertson traces the tight supply to the West, where most of the nation’s cow-calf land is. Severe droughts and wildfires have hit that range over the past decade. He said ranchers once moved herds elsewhere and brought them back. Many sold instead when prices were high, and aging cattlemen also took the chance to get out.

“What comes along with that option is you have less cattlemen in business,” Robertson said. “You have less cattle.”

That supply can’t be rebuilt quickly. Robertson said it takes about three years to raise a heifer to the point that she has a calf.

Robertson added that he believes prices have peaked after two or three years at historic highs. “I think the cattle price highs have probably — we’re probably on the downside,” Robertson said.

He also pushed back on complaints about beef prices and pointed to what equipment now costs. 

“Just go out and buy a tractor or something and compare it back to 10 years ago, then see what the difference is,” Robertson said. “Beef today is still a good-value protein.”

Markets can also swing on headlines. Robertson said last year’s statement about increasing Argentine beef imports hit cattle prices for about a week. He estimated the imports amounted to only 1% or 2% of U.S. use. Producers take whatever the market pays on sale day. So even a brief dip “costs a lot of money to people,” he said.

Yet those prices don’t cover every cost. Hay fields and pastures need nitrogen. Tractors, balers and trucks run on diesel. Both were among the inputs hit hardest this year. A farmer who skimped on fertilizer in the spring may end up with less hay this winter. That farmer must buy hay or sell cows early or both. High cattle prices also make it expensive to buy in for farmers just getting started or rebuilding a herd.

Robertson said the answer is to spend money on the ground itself in good years. He pointed to soil health, lime, weed control and pasture care. Those are expenses that can be put off when money is tight.

“You’re really a grass farmer, not a cattle farmer,” he said. “Without that upkeep, you’re just going to deplete everything you’ve got, and then you’re in worse shape than you started with.”

Timber, another big part of the local farm economy, is also under pressure. More than 56,000 acres of Chambers County farmland is woodland. James Williams, the Chambers County District 3 commissioner and a longtime forester, said the people who harvest it are struggling.

“The logging industry is in a spiral downhill at this time,” Williams said. “There are no good prices on timber, and the producers have the fuel prices on top of that.”

Williams estimated the county has a dozen or more timber producers, each employing five to 10 people, and said they are cutting costs wherever they can. “If something doesn’t happen here soon, I don’t know what a lot of these loggers will do,” he said.

The policy debate

Farm groups, economists and lawmakers disagree about what Washington should do.

In February, a bipartisan group of 27 former farm-industry leaders, commodity-group heads and USDA officials wrote to Congress blaming current federal agriculture policies and a lack of action from Congress for higher input costs, disrupted markets, labor shortages and reduced research funding. 

The signers asked Congress to end tariffs on farm inputs, expand export markets, reform farm labor rules, restore research funding and write a new farm bill, warning of “tremendous harm” to farmers if they failed to act.

The House has moved a draft farm bill forward. More than 100 food and farm organizations told Congress in July that the draft contained few provisions on farm credit. Farm Aid was among them. The groups asked lawmakers to pass the Fair Credit for Farmers Act of 2026.

The bill would protect farmers’ homes and expand access to USDA Farm Service Agency loans. It would also let farmers in financial distress defer payments for two years at low interest. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) introduced it with Reps. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

Robertson said he would like to see fewer regulations. He named fertilizer, weed chemicals, diesel fuel taxes and trade as areas he’d like regulators to back off of.

“We just can’t regulate ourselves out of business,” he said. “If they would just agree on common-sense things, I think we would be a whole lot better off. Just peel back a little bit and see what the free market does.”

A problem for the whole county

When farms struggle, the rest of the community feels it. That includes the feed store, the equipment dealer, the livestock auction and the local bank. It also includes the churches and schools that rural families support. Higher costs on the farm can also show up in food prices at the grocery store.

Williams said rising fuel prices affect everyone, but farmers feel them more than most because they need fuel to harvest crops and feed cattle. If logging companies cut back or shut down, he said, the damage would spread well beyond the woods. 

“It would be a very large blow to the economy of Chambers County,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a rise in unemployment,” Williams said. “If the producers can’t produce, look at how many wood products industries we have in Chambers County that depend on that wood to come in, and how many employees they have. So it’s just going to be a domino effect.”

Some farmers are looking for ways to depend less on fertilizer shipped across the world. They are turning to manure, compost and cover crops to rebuild their soil. Fourteen percent of Chambers County farms reported using cover crops in 2022.

Robertson said farmers often feel blamed for environmental problems. In his view the land is the one thing they can least afford to damage.

“We care more about the land and resources and conservation than most because that is our livelihood,” he said.

For RL&M, the plan is to stay in. The calves will be weaned and the trailers are ready. Robertson said good years are the time to put money back into the pastures before prices turn. He calls himself an optimist. He has to be.

“You’ve got to be an optimistic person to be in this industry,” he said.

The Robertson family has worked in agriculture in some form or fashion since the early 1800s, first raising cotton and now cattle. What worries him is who comes after in an industry that needs incentives to bring young people into farming. Without them, “everybody’s going to pay the price.”

“That’s what’s important to us, and we want to carry that on,” Robertson said. “We want our legacy to be out there on down the road.”

For Chambers County farmers who may be struggling, help is available at any hour. 

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, confidential support 24/7 by call or text, and the Avera Farm and Rural Stress Hotline, staffed by licensed assessment providers, is also available around the clock at 1-800-691-4336. For crisis support along with financial guidance and resource referrals, the Farm Aid Hotline can be reached at 1-800-FARM-AID (1-800-327-6243) weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CT.

Additional statewide resources, including a list of Alabama crisis centers and a provider resource guide, are available through the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries’ A Healthy You, A Healthy Farm program at agi.alabama.gov/hyhf.