End of cheap money for U.S. farmers plows trouble into food production

[NickB79]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/end-cheap-money-us-farmers-plows-trouble-into-food-production-2022-11-22/

Most U.S. farmers depend on short-term, variable-rate loans they take out after fall harvest and before spring planting to pay for everything from seeds and fertilizer to livestock and machinery.

Farmers repay these loans after harvest with cash from their crops before repeating the process. Often, farmers seek to secure loans by year-end or early January to take advantage of suppliers' early-pay discounts and to ensure they won't be caught short as global supplies of fertilizers and chemicals remain tight.

Now, producers are wrestling with how to pay for that debt as interest rates rise headed into the next planting season, according to interviews with two dozen farmers and bankers, as well as data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Kansas City Federal Reserve.

[msongs]

1. what would they do without all that red state welfare subsidy paid for by blue states nt

[Dan]

2. I wonder?

What happened to all that “America First” money that Trump sent to them after fucking over the Nation’s trade policies.