Farm bankruptcies in 2026 are on a similar pace with last year, and that is not good news. Austin Peiffer, an attorney with Ag and Business Legal Strategies in Hiawatha, Iowa, says the ag sector continues to undergo financial stress.
“The bankruptcies being on track with last year isn’t saying all that much, because I believe last year was the highest number of bankruptcies we’d had since about COVID time. I think so. Being on pace with that means, oh, it hasn’t gotten worse yet.”
In the first quarter of 2026, there were at least 158 Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy filings across the U.S. Peiffer says farmers who filed early this year may have started planting before the bottom fell out.
“The farmers who got input financing, they probably didn’t get enough input financing to cover the increased costs of fertilizer and other inputs they need for their crop due to the war in Iran and other issues. So you might have gotten through the first part of the year, you might get the crop in, but are you going to blow through your entire line of credit getting the crop in and not be able to get it out?”
He adds that desperate people sometimes take desperate measures.
“Selling grain at an elevator that you haven’t told the bank about, so the bank’s name isn’t on the check. Selling grain in someone else’s name and not turning the proceeds over to the bank. Those are all things that we’ve seen farmers do, and they get farmers in trouble.”
Peiffer says it’s best to seek the help of an attorney who is familiar with ag law and bankruptcies earlier rather than later.