By a Nebraska Corn and Soybean Farmer
October 2025
Most mornings, I’m up before sunrise, coffee in hand, watching the eastern sky turn gray over the fields. It’s a quiet time to think — about the weather, the markets, the next bill due, and now, about Washington.
The news says the federal government has “shut down.” In town that might mean a closed museum or a delayed passport. Out here, it means something entirely different. It means the gears that keep American agriculture running are grinding to a halt.
And while I’d love to tell you farmers can shrug it off, that we’ll just roll up our sleeves and work harder — the truth is, the shutdown hits us right in the gut.
The Check That Doesn’t Come
For a lot of family farms around here, fall isn’t just harvest season — it’s payment season. Those USDA checks tied to conservation programs, disaster recovery, or price supports are what help balance the books before winter.
This year, those checks might not come on time.
Our local Farm Service Agency office is either closed or running with a skeleton crew. That means if you had a payment due, a loan renewal pending, or paperwork that needed processing, it’s all sitting in limbo.
Farmers don’t live off subsidies — we live off timing. When payments don’t show up, bills don’t get paid. When bills don’t get paid, we borrow. And when we borrow during high interest rates, every late government check turns into another dollar owed to the bank.
The Credit That Disappears
A lot of folks in Washington don’t realize how intertwined rural lending and federal backing really are.
When a family farmer like me applies for a loan, the bank might say yes — but only because the FSA guarantees a portion of it. That guarantee lets local banks take a chance on us when our balance sheets look more like hope than collateral.
During a shutdown, those guarantees stop. No approvals, no renewals, no new applications. And once that word gets around, banks start tightening up.
I know farmers right now who had planned to refinance equipment or secure an operating line for spring. Those deals are suddenly on hold. It’s like standing at the grain elevator, ticket in hand, and being told the scales aren’t working — you’ve done everything right, but nothing moves.
Farming Without a Compass
Markets are a lot like weather — unpredictable, but not random. Farmers live by the numbers: acreage reports, crop forecasts, export data. That information, gathered and released by the USDA, shapes every sale, hedge, and storage decision we make.
But with the shutdown, those reports have stopped.
Without them, traders, buyers, and co-ops are guessing. And when big players guess, they protect themselves — usually by offering lower bids or widening the basis. The farmer at the end of the line ends up eating that uncertainty.
Right now, every Nebraska corn and soybean farmer is flying blind.
We don’t know how national yields are trending. We don’t know what export demand looks like. We don’t even know if prices are reflecting reality or fear. That’s a dangerous way to do business when you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in crop sales.
Projects on Pause
Many of us in eastern Nebraska participate in conservation programs — cover crops, reduced tillage, water management. They’re not just feel-good efforts; they’re practical ways to keep our soil healthy and productive for the next generation.
But those programs depend on cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and USDA technical staff.
When the government shuts down, those people are furloughed. No field visits. No payments. No new enrollments.
So that buffer strip you were planning to install this fall? It waits. The cost-share payment you were counting on for next season’s cover crop? On hold.
That’s not bureaucracy — that’s the federal partnership that keeps our land viable. And when that system pauses, stewardship suffers.
The Ripple Effect Down Main Street
When farmers tighten their belts, Main Street feels it.
Maybe we hold off on buying new tires. Maybe we delay that grain bin repair. Maybe we skip the Friday breakfast at the diner because we’re waiting on a payment that didn’t arrive.
Each of those small pauses ripples outward. The local mechanic gets fewer jobs. The co-op sells less fertilizer. The school fundraiser draws fewer bids at the auction.
Out here, agriculture isn’t just an industry — it’s the bloodstream of the community. When Washington stops the flow, rural America gets anemic.
The Uncertainty Is the Worst Crop of All
Every farmer knows how to deal with adversity. Drought, hail, disease — we’ve seen it all. But what we can’t manage is uncertainty.
You can’t plan around “maybe.”
You can’t negotiate a seed order on “we’ll see.”
When the people making the rules can’t keep their own house in order, it makes it that much harder for the rest of us to keep ours afloat.
We’re told this is about budgets, politics, leverage. But for farmers, it’s about payrolls, feed bills, and loan renewals.
This shutdown isn’t theoretical — it’s real, and it’s personal.
A Simple Ask: Stability
I don’t care which party you belong to, or which side you blame. I care about the ability to plan, to operate, to make a living feeding this country.
Farmers don’t ask much of Washington. We don’t expect miracles, just stability. We don’t need handouts, just consistency.
When that stops, everything else starts to wobble — the markets, the lenders, the neighbors who depend on our business.
And yet, even as I write this, tomorrow I’ll wake up, pour that same cup of coffee, and head back to the field. Because that’s what we do. We keep showing up, even when the government doesn’t.
The View From the Combine
Maybe someday someone in Washington will read this and realize that out here, “shutdown” doesn’t mean politics — it means risk, delay, and debt. It means farmers checking their bank accounts instead of checking the weather. It means another reason for young people to leave the farm behind.
We don’t expect praise or pity. We just want predictability.
Because while Washington fights, the corn keeps growing, the beans keep ripening, and the families of Nebraska keep doing what they’ve always done — feeding a nation that too often forgets where its food comes from.
And that’s the irony of it all:
The people most affected by a government shutdown are often the ones least represented in the shouting.
We don’t have lobbyists. We don’t hold press conferences. We just keep farming.
And hoping that someone, somewhere, remembers that the heartland runs best when the country does, too.
The Inner Monologue 
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