Farm bankruptcies rise in upper midwest

Madisonburg, Pennsylvania (Centre County)  

Owen Daugherty reports for The Hill, "Farm Bankruptcies on the rise according to new Fed Report."  Here's the lede:

At least 84 farms filed for bankruptcy from June 2017 to June 2018 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota, according to analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. 

The report released earlier this month shows that over the same time period in 2014, 32 farms filed for bankruptcy.

The numbers have increased steadily since then, with 46 bankruptcies reported in 2015, 60 bankruptcies reported in 2016 and 67 reported in 2017.

In 2010, 70 bankruptcies were reported in the five states, but that was following the financial collapse of 2008–2009 and a brutal recession.

Here's the lede from the FedGazette's report.  

It’s no longer a news story that crop and livestock prices are depressed, given their current multiyear persistence. Feedback from farmers, agricultural lenders, suppliers, and other interests in the ag sector, gathered informally by the Minneapolis Fed over the past year or so in meetings and other venues, has suggested that farm balance sheets are increasingly stressed. 

And that nagging economic strain of low commodity prices on farmers and ranchers—compounded for some by recent tariffs—is starting to show up not just in bottom-line profitability, but in simple viability.

The related phenomenon of farmer mental health is here.  A related story about farmers' increasing financial plight is here.