Fertilizer is spread across a field in China Grove, North Carolina, on April 10, 2026.Grant Baldwin | AFP | Getty ImagesOn a farm in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where her husband’s family has worked the land for generations, Lorenda Overman is facing familiar hurdles — but also new pressures she couldn’t have predicted only months ago.”We’re always battling weather, disease and insects,” said Overman. “Three years we’ve had record high input prices, and it has just got higher the last six or eight weeks.”Fertilizer prices have surged due to shipping disruptions from the war in the Middle East, and the higher costs are rippling across U.S. agriculture just as spring planting gets underway. Farmers are being forced to scale back inputs, shift crops and reconsider how much to plant, which could affect the supply of certain crops in the U.S. and around the world.New survey data from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows fertilizer access and affordability are becoming a defining challenge for this year’s growing season. Almost six in 10, or 58%, report worsening financial conditions amid rising input and fuel costs, according to the survey conducted April 3 through April 11.A major share of farmers say they cannot afford all the fertilizer they need. In the Midwest, nearly half, or 48%, said they could not afford the fertilizer they need. That share was at least 66% in the Western, Northeast and Southern regions.Overman said she did not order fertilizer ahead of time, which is a common practice in the industry, because her farm could not make ends meet last year and she was hoping that prices would go down as planting season began this year. “We can’t wait for the [Strait of Hormuz] to open back up and those ships to get here before we have to purchase those inputs,” said Overman.Fertilizer and nitrogen costs on her farm jumped from $139 per acre last year to an unexpected $217 this season.Now bracing for a less profitable growing season, she’s among the many farmers reworking their books to try to blunt the blow from rising commodity costs. That could not only affect those farmers’ bottom lines, but also their ability to grow the quantity of key crops they usua …
