Iowa farmers could experience a $7 billion loss due to COVID-19. | Pixabay
Iowa farmers could experience a $7 billion loss due to COVID-19. | Pixabay
Iowa farmers are expected to experience almost $7 billion in losses as the result of COVID-19, according to economists at the Iowa State University.
“This is not a good situation,” Bill Drury, a farmer in Wright County in north-central Iowa, told Farm Progress Daily. “We’re on a slippery slope for getting farmers financed for the coming year.”
While farm organizations like the American Farm Bureau is asking Congress to provide the agriculture sector with more economic relief, farmers have been looking into ways to save money. This includes taking advantage of cost-share funding to purchase items such as cover crops which will save soil and having discussions with landowners about flexible cash rent leasing.
“Farmers hope the big crop this year will save them,” Drury told Farm Progress Daily. “But we’ve got to find a home for this crop. Demand needs to improve. That’s the key.”