COMO, Miss. – On a bright, dry Friday morning in Panola County, 73-year-old Sledge Taylor did what he has done for 53 years: walked his fields. The little green corn stalks on about 4,000 acres are between vegetative stages V3 and V5, a key time when roots deepen and farmers normally side-dress nitrogen fertilizer.
Taylor said he may skip that fertilizer this year because of sharply higher nitrogen prices and low corn prices. Nitrogen is critical for yields, and about one-third of the world’s supply moves through the Strait of Hormuz — which is currently closed amid the US-Israeli war with Iran. Roughly 20% of global fuel also transits the strait. The disruption has pushed fertilizer and diesel prices up at the exact moment planting season demands the most fuel and inputs.
Taylor has resorted to buying diesel “hand to mouth.” Though his farm has storage for more than 20,000 gallons, he’s down to about 1,000. “Sometimes we know that we’ve only got two weeks of fuel,” he said.
Delta farmers were already struggling after trade disruptions. Tariffs imposed during the Trump administration and retaliatory measures by other countries gutted export markets Delta farmers depend on: China largely stopped buying U.S. soybeans, rice exports to Latin America collapsed, corn prices fell and cotton prices slumped. Taylor said those lost customers may never return and called the relief payments he received from the administration’s one-time Farmer Bridge Assistance Program inadequate — covering only about 20% of his losses. “If somebody took $100 out of my pocket and then turned around and gave me $20 back… I’m not really sure I would agree,” he said.
The Trump administration has said it provided over $30 billion in ad hoc assistance to farmers since January 2025, but the USDA did not answer NPR’s questions about whether additional payments are being considered specifically to offset higher fertilizer and fuel costs.
A few miles away, 58-year-old Anthony Bland, who farms about 2,000 acres of rice and soybeans near Sledge, is doing his own math. Bland’s family has farmed the Delta for generations. Unlike much of the Midwest, Delta growers rely on diesel-powered pumps for irrigation; a record-breaking drought has forced pumps to run longer and burn more fuel. Bland said diesel is about 60% more expensive than 45 days earlier.
Fertilizer prices have jumped, too. Bland said the 35 tons of fertilizer that cost him roughly $16,000 last year now pencil out to about $26,000 for the same amount. That estimate doesn’t include rising costs for parts, equipment and insurance — all adding pressure while commodity prices stay flat or decline.
Bland also received money from the Farmer Bridge Assistance program and estimated it covered about a quarter of his tariff losses. He is navigating additional frustration over changes to longstanding USDA programs intended to help Black farmers, programs he says were gutted by the administration and that historically helped smaller-scale operations that lack large financial cushions.
Unlike Taylor, Bland did not vote for Trump in 2024. Both men, however, said they do not support the war with Iran and that the combined shocks of tariffs and the strait closure may force them to stop farming. Bland said he might lease out family land or leave the business altogether; Taylor said he’s nearing his limit.
Taylor recalled the 1980s farm crisis, when low prices, high interest rates and collapsing land values forced many family farms into foreclosure. But he said he has never seen prices swing as wildly as they are now. “We got people that were barely struggling to get by, and now they’ve been hit with two major increases for fertilizer and fuel just exactly at the wrong time when we need them,” he said. “It’s going to be the nail in the coffin for a number of farmers.”
Mississippi’s Delta soils, built by the Mississippi River over millennia, remain among the most fertile in the country and contributed to the state’s roughly $9.5 billion in estimated agricultural production in 2025. Yet the region carries the legacy of “King Cotton,” slavery and Jim Crow, and its farm communities still contend with longstanding inequalities. A few years ago, Black workers in the Delta settled lawsuits alleging discriminatory pay practices against immigrant labor.
For farmers like Taylor and Bland — fifth- and multi-generation growers who introduce themselves by listing their family farming lineage — this season feels like a turning point. “When elephants fight, it’s the ants that get crushed,” Taylor said, looking across his rows of corn. “The ants are getting crushed.”