Farmers Frazzled to the Bone

The oil shock and its grip on food is going to be so much worse than most people think. I got an interesting little tip at my favorite local bistro in our farm town this evening. The bartender told me one of the area dairy farmers was in and was describing how rough it’s getting due to the oil wars: One of his large tractors holds 250 gallons of diesel and it goes through all of that in a single day when he is working the cornfields to grow fodder for the cows. It now costs about $1,500 to fill those tanks at local prices for Ag diesel. $1,500 a day just for fuel!

That kind of daily high fuel pricing is hitting farmers at the same time they are being hit with skyrocketing fertilizer costs due to the war and extreme drought:

Coming into 2026, we were already in the midst of the worst farming crisis in at least 50 years. Now the war in the Middle East has caused fertilizer prices to go absolutely haywire, and a historic drought has created nightmare conditions for farmers from coast to coast. What we are witnessing is truly unprecedented. One recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers won’t be able to afford all of the fertilizer that they need this year.

I covered that last bit this weekend in my Deeper Dive.

So, US farmers are being clobbered by war in Iran driving up natural gas and oil prices and the war in Ukraine still driving up natural gas prices because commercial fertilizers come from natural gas. At the same time they are being smacked down by soaring lubricant prices (tractors use a lot of hydraulic oil, engine oil, transmission fluid, differential oil and grease) and by the continuing widespread drought.

The fertilizer equation is a no-brainer:

The connection is simple, agricultural fact, not speculation: reduced fertilizer application directly translates to plummeting crop yields. Modern industrial agriculture is utterly dependent on synthetic nitrogen, a product of the Haber-Bosch process which itself requires immense amounts of natural gas…. The feedstock for this process is becoming scarce and prohibitively expensive…. Half the world’s nitrogen supply is now compromised, threatening global agriculture…. This isn’t a theory; it’s chemistry and logistics.

The coming scarcity will not manifest as a gradual, manageable price increase. It will be a sudden, severe shortage hitting supermarket shelves. The system has no slack. As farmers face soaring costs for diesel and natural gas, many are reducing planting or cutting back on fertilizer application, which threatens global grain yields…. The recent failure of a critical Australian ammonia plant [used for ammonium nitrate and urea, fertilizers], exacerbating the global crisis, is just one more domino falling…. We are witnessing a cascading failure.

This crisis exposes the fatal fragility of our centralized, just-in-time food system, built for corporate efficiency but not for human resilience. It is a house of cards. As noted in studies of agricultural systems, when trade collapses and scarcity of inputs occurs, yields fall drastically…. Our entire civilization is balanced on this vulnerable, centralized point of failure. The system is designed to move commodities for profit, not to ensure communities are fed. When the just-in-time model fails, it fails completely, leaving nothing in the pipeline.

Bulk fertilizer prices have almost doubled since the Trump-Israel-Iran War began. You can see why, with fuel prices being scorching hot, those rising fertilizer costs are causing some farmers to decide to plant less and save on fuel; and what they do plant will likely be less productive while costing more per acre to grow.

Almost two-thirds of the US is in some level of drought with the next El Niño expected to arrive with extreme force earlier than usual this year.

This year’s record-warm, dry spring is pummeling Colorado farmers amid multiple threats, disrupting the state’s $9 billion agricultural sector and jeopardizing even signature crops such as Pueblo green chiles, Olathe sweet corn and Palisade peaches.

Water scarcity, due to exceptionally low mountain snow and soil-drying heat, looms foremost.

I know the Cascade Mountain Range right beside where I live definitely saw a lot less snow than normal this year, which means rivers will be running low in the summer as will wells. I know what the mountains usually look like round here this time of year, and they are showing a lot more rock than usual.

The El Niño oceanic current that drives hot weather is expected to return in May. While El Niño brings the United States its hottest weather, it can also deliver more rain in some areas because of more evaporation off the heated ocean, but that depends on how far south one is. Northern-tier farm states will likely be hotter and drier as the moister air sweeps across the south. Corn likes heat but only if there is abundant water. It’s a very thirsty plant.

The WMO [World Meteorological Organization] said in its latest monthly Global Seasonal Climate Update that sea surface temperatures are rising rapidly in the equatorial Pacific, “pointing to a likely return of El Nino conditions as early as May-July….”

Forecasts indicate a “nearly global dominance of above-normal land surface temperatures” in the next three months….

The WMO’s April Global Seasonal Climate Update said that for May to July, land surface temperatures are expected to be above normal nearly everywhere.

The signals are especially strong over southern North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, as well as Europe and Northern Africa.

The effect on precipitation doesn’t typically come until winter. So, the summer will be hotter, and this El Niño is anticipated to be a strong one, making the drought worse, but there may be reprieve in some areas in the winter as follows:

The next typical anomaly during El Niño shows up in December with heavy rain along the West Coast, especially California. The storm track becomes active just north of the El Niño warm waters. This storm track causes storminess from California to the Southeast U.S.

Then a really noticeable oddity shows up in the northern U.S., especially the Great Lakes region and Michigan. Around late December or January, milder-than-normal Pacific air streams across the northern Plains and over Michigan.

Generally speaking, a strong El Nino means warmer conditions throughout the US this spring and summer, causing the land to dry out more, requiring more irrigation, while bringing moister conditions in the south half of the US and drier conditions in the north half, albeit usually toward the end of the year for the moisture’s arrival. Temps may become 6 degrees higher than average during the coming El Niño.

There is a lot of fear mongering going on about this being a “Super El Niño,” but there actually is no such classification at the WMO, and these cycles happen all the time. We are, however, expected to experience a stronger than usual El Niño. In which case it could be problematic for all those farmers for this year, as if they didn’t have enough on their plate (leaving a lot less on everyone else’s plates).