U.S. Congresswoman Cindy Axne

U.S. farm bankruptcy rates jumped 20% last year, according to data released by the United States Courts, which Iowa Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D) attributes to China trade woes and the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions towards ethanol.

Sources say family farmers filed 595 Chapter 12 bankruptcies in 2019, up from 498 filings the previous year. Axne says Iowa has the highest farm debt of any state in the country and that “we are in a world of hurt.” She believes the agriculture industry is in this position because of the trade war with China resulting in a 25% soybean market loss, and the EPA’s final renewable fuel standard issued last December. The agreement didn’t include language President Trump agreed to in adding ethanol gallons back to the nation’s gasoline supply based on oil refinery exemptions granted in the last three years, “We need this president and this administration to go back to honoring the law the policy that states that 15 billion gallons of ethanol are to be blended into fossil fuels. So that we don’t continue to bleed the sales of corn and ethanol because this administration is not following the policy, so we’ve lost billions of gallons of ethanol sales and that’s what’s really hurting us.”

Axne mentions that she’s glad about the U.S.-China Phase 1 trade deal that was signed this past month to cut some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for the Chinese government pledging to purchase more U.S. produced farm, energy, and manufactured goods and address some complaints about intellectual property practices. However, she adds the U.S. has a long way to go in order to satisfy the ag economy, that has lost markets to countries including Brazil and Russia.