The saying is, “Agriculture is a profession of hope.” But hope in the farm community is waning. Or so says the monthly report from the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture.
The Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer’s August results were released earlier this week, painting a dichotomous picture in farming. With the national cattle herd the smallest it has been since 1951, according to the report, livestock producers are enjoying record-high prices for beef and are optimistic. However, the rest of agriculture has a different outlook.
Farmers’ confidence dropped to its lowest level since September 2024, perhaps in large part based on the expectation of needing to borrow additional funds for 2026 operations. The report noted 23 percent of farmers anticipated rolling over unpaid debts into their 2026 operating loans compared to 17 percent last year and 5 percent in 2023. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also reported national average prices for corn and soybeans, benchmarks for other row crops, were trending below “breakeven” for the year.
Public policy and economics often collide in agriculture. The financial consequences of new policies are often easy to see shortly after they are enacted. Discussions of the financial ramifications of agricultural policy have been largely abandoned in recent years as farmers and ranchers have been accused of only considering their bottom line and not the people involved in agriculture.
Many of the policies governing agriculture are impacting both the economics and people in our food production sector. The combination of these effects forces farm and ranch owners to consider both the monetary and human aspects of their businesses in tandem.
Recent examples of agricultural policies effecting both the personal and economic well-being of farms in Washington state include the implementation of overtime and the on-going need for gray wolf management reform. The full implementation of our state’s strict overtime law has lessened the available work hours for many farmworkers, leading to less overall earned income. The economic impact of gray wolves in the Northeastern part of the state is becoming more apparent with each passing year.
In 2021, Senate Bill 5172 instituted the most restrictive ag overtime law in the country. Washington state took a phased-in approach to overtime in agriculture, starting in 2022 with time-and-a-half paid for any hours worked beyond 55 in a week; then the threshold dropped to 48 hours in 2023; and to 40 hours in 2024. Unlike the other states in the United States that have passed overtime laws, our state provided no seasonal flexibility or tax credits to agricultural employers to help off-set the costs imposed by this law. In 2023, the most recent year data is available, Washington state’s agricultural labor expenses were 462 percent higher than the national average at $144,000 per farm versus an average of $26,000 per farm elsewhere in the U.S.
In the years since its implementation, several legislative attempts have been made to bring flexibility to overtime in our state. Each attempt has been stymied during legislative committee hearings. During one hearing in 2023, a sitting senator disregarded testimony of farmworkers who were asking for an overtime flexibility bill to be passed out of committee. Instead of making use of certified interpreters in the Senate committee chamber, the lawmaker took on the role of interpreter and editorial commentator, noting, “… it’s really hard for me to translate when I know they’re not given all the information.” While farmworkers have pleaded for flexibility to be integrated into the overtime law and statistical evidence shows the expense of the law to be exorbitant, there has still been no move to change the law.
Gray wolf management is suffering a similar fate. When gray wolves returned to Washington state in 2007, a management plan was developed using the science of the era. It projected wolves would naturally disperse throughout the state in about a decade without human intervention. Now, nearly 20 years later, there are at least 217 gray wolves in our state, most of which reside in the Northeast region. Rather than dispersing statewide on their own, gray wolves have remained localized to a specific area. They are increasing in population, depredating livestock, and becoming more acclimated to non-lethal deterrents like fladry and range riders. A recent study noted the mere presence of wolves on a ranch can negatively impact its overall annual revenue by at least 28 percent.
In both cases, now is the time for Washington state to begin examining how laws can be better crafted to make our farms and ranches economically viable to support the people who rely on them. The economics of agriculture are intrinsically linked to the people of agriculture. It is time to acknowledge that inescapable fact. When a policy strips away the ability of a farm or ranch to be economically viable, it also removes the ability for that business to be a people-centered organization.
