Wisconsin farmers are being squeezed from both sides of the ledger. Fertilizer and energy costs remain high, while disrupted shipping is limiting export sales and adding to freight bills. During his first Wisconsin visit of his second term, President Trump said fertilizer, energy, oil and gas prices would fall. Market indicators and shipping conditions offer little evidence of a quick improvement. The gap between that promise and what producers face now is the central issue: lower costs would help, but farmers also need to move crops and collect revenue.
Input costs remain a strain
The Ag Econ Barometer and a comparison of world agricultural commodity prices with fertilizer prices illustrate the pressure on farm economics. The barometer is plotted on the left scale; the commodity-to-fertilizer price ratio is on the right. The chart also marks U.S. recession periods and Trump administrations. Read together, the indicators track two different things: how farmers feel about conditions and how commodity prices compare with the cost of a key input. Neither measure, as described here, points to an easy operating environment.
The ratio matters because a farmer’s ability to absorb fertilizer costs depends partly on what crops bring in return. A high input bill can be harder to manage when commodity prices don’t keep pace, even if those prices have not fallen outright. The barometer adds a separate signal about sentiment, which can reflect the broader strain producers see in their businesses. These measures don’t identify what any individual farm will pay or earn, but they help explain why claims of imminent relief deserve scrutiny. This is more significant than it looks: a forecast of lower prices doesn’t ease cash-flow pressure until those prices actually change.
Markets also point to a drawn-out disruption. Kalshi contracts tracking when Strait of Hormuz traffic will return to normal showed limited expectations, as of June 6, 2026, for a rapid reopening by September 1, October 1 or January 2027. Those contracts are market expectations, not a schedule or a guarantee; they can shift as conditions change. Still, the outlook offers little basis for expecting near-term relief in oil and fertilizer costs. Energy affects farms directly through fuel and indirectly through the production and movement of inputs. If you’re working in this space, the practical question is how long the disruption lasts and how much cost can be passed along. Uncertainty itself.
Export delays add revenue risk
Higher input bills are coinciding with constrained sales. Menomonie kidney bean farmer Cindy Brown said tariffs have hurt exports and that Chippewa Valley Bean can’t ship to customers in Dubai amid the Strait of Hormuz blockade. Freight costs have also risen. That combination can squeeze a producer even when there’s demand for the crop: the sale may be harder to complete, more expensive to deliver, or both.
For an agricultural business, a shipping delay isn’t just a logistics problem. It can affect when revenue arrives, how much transportation costs consume, and whether customers can be served on the expected terms. The source doesn’t quantify those effects for Brown’s operation or for Wisconsin exporters as a whole, so the scale of the damage remains uncertain. But the mechanism is plain: input expenses come due while sales and payment can be held up. And this is the part most people overlook: export access can matter as much as the price quoted for a crop.
“There’s no clear end in sight right now and the longer this goes on, the more money farmers lose and the darker the outlook becomes,” Brown said.
Wisconsin’s preliminary March figures for nonmanufactured exports are available; April data are scheduled for release June 9. Those figures may help clarify how much the shipping disruption is affecting export receipts. They won’t, by themselves, establish why receipts changed: trade figures can reflect a range of conditions, and the information provided here doesn’t isolate the blockade’s effect. Even so, comparing the available months may give readers a firmer view of whether the disruption is showing up in reported exports.
Federal support could grow
With costs elevated and export revenue at risk, further federal payments may again become part of the response. Trump cited the $28 billion paid to farmers through the Market Facilitation Program during his first administration, as well as $11 billion distributed in March and April through Farmer Bridge Assistance. He said the administration was considering increasing that support. The amounts describe past and recent payments; they don’t establish what additional aid, if any, will be approved or when producers might receive it.
The USDA Economic Research Service forecasts direct government support of $44.3 billion in 2026 dollars for 2026, compared with $30.5 billion in 2025 and $10.1 billion in 2024. The forecast signals that public payments are expected to be a substantial part of farm income, but the basis for the projection is unclear in the absence of legislation authorizing and appropriating the projected funds. That uncertainty matters for producers trying to plan around cash needs. A forecast can describe an expected path; it can’t substitute for enacted funding.
What the outlook depends on
For Wisconsin producers, the near-term picture still hinges on whether shipping resumes and input prices ease before another round of support is settled. These pressures interact: higher costs weaken margins, while delayed exports can postpone the revenue meant to cover them. Government payments may cushion losses, but the figures cited don’t show how support would be distributed among producers or whether it would offset the specific costs Brown described.
Here’s the thing: the available indicators tell a story of pressure and uncertainty, not a clear timetable for recovery. The export data due in June may add evidence on trade, while the shipping outlook and fertilizer prices will remain important signals for farm finances. That said, no single chart, market contract or monthly export figure can settle the question on its own. For now, the gap between promised price relief and the conditions farmers report remains the measure to watch.