On March 19, more than 50 agricultural organizations — from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the National Corn Growers Association to Western Growers — sent a formal request to President Trump asking for emergency market assistance to be included in any upcoming defense supplemental package. The numbers in the letter are serious. The situation underneath them is worse.
Before anyone had heard the words "Operation Epic Fury," American farmers were already having a hard year. A widespread January winter storm tore through the Southeast, hitting fruit, vegetable, sugar, and citrus crops with billions in losses. Drought and historic wildfires continued across the Plains. Crop prices had been falling. Margins, for many operations, were already underwater.
Then the Strait of Hormuz closed.
About one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade typically passes through the strait, which has been nearly entirely closed since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began February 28. The closure didn't just raise prices — it pulled product off the market entirely at the worst possible moment. Farmers order fertilizer in March to apply in April and May. The planting window doesn't negotiate.
Urea prices at the New Orleans import hub jumped from $516 per metric ton on February 27 to $683 on March 5 — a 32% increase in a single week. To put that in terms a farm operation actually feels: one ton of urea now costs U.S. farmers the equivalent of 126 bushels of corn, up from 75 bushels in December.
Seth Meyer, a former USDA chief economist, stated:
"You've got the usual tension, you've got the added tension of fertilizer and trade, and you've got the perhaps more crucial context of, margins are very poor. A bad decision this year could be pretty costly."
The American Farm Bureau Federation has warned that many farmers who didn't pre-order and pay for fertilizer may not be able to obtain what they need for spring planting or during the growing season.
The coalition's request isn't a blank check. The letter asks for relief that builds on existing programs such as support for specialty crop, sugar, and alfalfa growers, assistance for farmers who sold grain at harvest lows, help for operations dealing with weather disasters, and longer-term demand stability through measures like year-round E15 sales and the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit.
Food security is national security. Given that more than 50 organizations signed it — spanning row crops, specialty produce, sugar, cotton, and livestock — it carries weight that's hard to dismiss politically, especially heading into a midterm environment where gas prices are already a daily news story.
Whether emergency agricultural relief makes it into a defense supplemental package is an open question. The spring planting season is not.
