COMO, Miss. — On a bright, dry Friday in Panola County, 73-year-old Sledge Taylor did what he has done every morning for 53 years: he walked his fields. The young corn — planted across roughly 4,000 acres — sits between vegetative stages V3 and V5, a critical window when roots deepen and farmers typically side-dress with nitrogen to protect yields.
Normally Taylor would cut the soil and apply nitrogen with a 20-inch steel disk. ‘But I may not do it this year,’ he said. ‘Because of the price of nitrogen and the low price of corn.’
Nitrogen is essential for corn, and global supply lines are strained. Roughly one-third of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer transits the Strait of Hormuz — currently closed amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran — and about 20% of global fuel moves through the waterway as well. The choke point has pushed fertilizer and diesel prices sharply higher.
Taylor said he has been buying diesel ‘hand to mouth.’ Although his farm has capacity for more than 20,000 gallons, he is sitting on about 1,000. ‘Sometimes we know that we’ve only got two weeks of fuel,’ he said. The conflict has arrived in spring, the busiest season for planting, pumping and fertilizer applications, he added, compounding an already precarious cash flow.
Delta farmers were struggling before the current spike. Retaliatory tariffs and trade disruptions that followed tariffs imposed during the previous administration hollowed out export markets the region relies on: China largely stopped buying U.S. soybeans, rice exports to Latin America fell dramatically, and prices for corn and cotton dropped. Taylor said the loss of export customers has been permanent for some crops and that his relief payment from the administration’s $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance Program covered only about 20% of last year’s losses. ‘My patience with the administration is wearing thin,’ he said.
A USDA spokesperson noted the administration has provided more than $30 billion in ad hoc assistance to farmers since January 2025, but declined to say whether additional payments are under consideration specifically to offset rising fertilizer and fuel costs.
A few miles away near the town of Sledge, 58-year-old Anthony Bland is running the same numbers and reaching the same grim conclusion. Bland farms about 2,000 acres of rice and soybeans and traces his work through generations: ‘From the cotton fields to what we’re doing now,’ he said. The region’s history — the legacy of plantations, slavery and Jim Crow — still shapes how local agriculture operates.
Delta producers rely on diesel-powered pumps for irrigation in ways many Midwestern farmers do not. A record-breaking drought this spring has forced those pumps to run longer and burn more fuel. ‘Right now I’m paying 60% more for diesel fuel than I would have been paying 45 days ago,’ Bland said.
Fertilizer costs have jumped, too. Bland said the 35 tons of fertilizer he bought for his rice and corn cost roughly $16,000 last year; he has penciled in about $26,000 for the same amount this year. That estimate comes before accounting for rising parts, equipment, insurance and other inputs — even as commodity prices remain flat or fall.
Like Taylor, Bland received money from the Farmer Bridge Assistance program and estimated it covered about a quarter of his tariff-related losses. He is also navigating changes to long-standing USDA programs that once aided Black farmers. Those programs were created because Black farmers historically faced discrimination from lenders and agencies and often operate at smaller scales with less financial cushion. Bland said he did not vote for Donald Trump in 2024 and objects to how the administration has treated people who ‘don’t look like him.’
Both men said they oppose the war with Iran and are unsure whether they can continue farming. Bland called this a ‘make-or-break’ year: he may stop planting some family fields, lease land out, or leave farming altogether. Taylor, who remembers the farm crisis of the 1980s, said he has never seen prices swing so wildly and fears this could be ‘the nail in the coffin for a number of farmers.’
‘There’s an old African proverb,’ Taylor said, looking across rows of green corn, ‘When elephants fight, it’s the ants that get crushed.’ He said the ants — small, family-run farms across the Delta — are being crushed now.