A farmer’s barn in Somerset, Ohio, shows support for Trump. While the majority of rural Americans supported the Republican candidate, it might be to the detriment of the agriculture system.
Credit: Christine Ruddy/Shutterstock

The rate of bankruptcies among farms is rising steeply in the upper Midwest due to falling revenues from corn, soybeans, milk and other products.

Over the last 12 months ending in June, 84 farms have declared bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, more than doubling the number of bankruptcies over the same stretch in 2013/2014, according  to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Additionally, the outlook moving forward doesn’t look good. Some farm exports actually spiked in the second quarter in the race to beat the implementation of China’s retaliatory tariffs. Soybean sales, for instance, have now “slowed to a crawl,” according the Star Tribune. Given the price drops on the products since June, Minneapolis Fed analyst Ron Wirtz tells the AP, “The trajectory of the current trends suggest that […]