Meet five Ohio farmers surviving in a landscape of climbing costs

Today from the Ohio Newsroom, the climbing costs of running a farm. Support comes from Ohio Casa. Ohio Casa's mission is to ensure children experiencing abuse and neglect, have a caring, trained adult in their corner. Information about CASA volunteer work is at Ohio's C-A-S-A.org. I'm Erin Gotsacker. A bipartisan group of agricultural leaders are warning Congress of a deepening crisis on America's farms. The cost of fertilizer has more than doubled since 2020. Fuel costs surged following the war in Iran and U.S. agricultural exports are at their lowest levels in years. Farmers across the country are reaching a breaking point. Last year, farm bankruptcies rose by 46%, a trend that's carried into this year, too. I spoke with five farmers across. across Ohio about their experiences this growing season and how the increased costs are weighing on them. So I'm Bennett Musselman. I farm in Pickaway Madison and Franklin County. It's kind of... been a gut punch, I guess, a little bit with the prices. Every time you go to purchase something, it was more expensive this year than it was last year, all the way down to parts and oil and general maintenance things. It's just, it stacks up quite a bit. This year, we had an opportunity to pick up a farm. Two guys were retiring. So we had to buy some fertilizer late in the game, and that was... Yeah, it's these new farms, profitability is going to be very, very tough. But if you don't take advantage of the opportunity, you may not ever get that opportunity again. My name is Kerry Starr. I'm the co-owner of Cherokee Valley Bison Ranch. My husband and I've been raising bison here in Thornville for a little over 18 years now. Big surprise, not everybody in Ohio wants to process bison, so we have to drive two hours one way to get to our butcher. Instead of it costing me $60 to $80 to fill up my truck, it's going to be $80 to $120 to full up my truck. So I've been trying to batch trips. So taking a couple of animals at a time to help stretch that fuel dollar. I'm Cy Prettyman. I farm here in North Central Ohio with my family. We raise corn, soybeans, and we do some beef cattle that we do direct to consumer. We were paying over $4, maybe over $450 or so for off-road diesel in the spring. And when you fill up tractors that have three or 400 gallon tanks on them, just do the math real quick on that. That's a very big expense. So we definitely kind of went hand to mouth just as small amount as we needed to try to get through the spring. I'm Annie Wormke, and I'm the owner and farmer of Wormke Farm Food Forest Garden. I have a different situation, but it's still impacting me. I have to drive 25 miles to the produce auction.

And when I start to add all that up, I don't make money. I don't make any money. It costs me to take my produce to the auction. Chris Gibbs from Shelby County, Ohio. I'm a farmer. Raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa hay, and we've got 90 beef cows. We're in the middle of our third year of cash flow losses. Agriculture right now is in a cash flow and working capital crisis. If I was totally in the grain business, and that's all the income I had. We'd be in real trouble. We'd have to go to reserves. We'd have to go to savings. We'd have to go to additional borrowing. We would have to do refinancing. There's a time when your banker is going to say, hey, no, we just can't go on anymore because you don't have the capacity to repay in the future. Worst case scenario, we may have to quit and let somebody else farm. You just heard from Ohio farmers Chris Gibbs, Annie Wormke, Cy Prettyman, Carrie Starr, and Bennett Musselman talking about the rising costs of farming this year. Support comes from the James at Ohio State, cancer. For some, it's one of life's fiercest foes, but not at the James, where a team of nearly 300 specialists and over 1,500 researchers are working together to create a cancer-free world.

That's all today from the Ohio News Room. We'll talk with you tomorrow.