--- title: "Diesel is $6.82 a gallon in Illinois, and that is only one line of the farmer’s ledger" description: "Record fuel costs, much pricier fertilizer, closed export markets and a 20% jump in farm bankruptcies." author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-09-28T09:00:29.840Z modified: 2026-09-28T22:20:27Z url: https://rews.cc/a/diesel-is-6-82-a-gallon-in-illinois-and-that-is-only-one-lin-d674f7 language: en tags: ["economy", "inflation", "agriculture", "diesel", "trade-war", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Diesel is $6.82 a gallon in Illinois, and that is only one line of the farmer’s ledger *Record fuel costs, much pricier fertilizer, closed export markets and a 20% jump in farm bankruptcies.* By Nate Ledger · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/diesel-is-6-82-a-gallon-in-illinois-and-that-is-only-one-lin-d674f7 ## In brief - Illinois farmer John Yeley, whose family has farmed since 1852, says he wouldn’t wish the business on his children - Diesel is near its all-time high of $6.53 nationally and averaged $6.82 in Illinois as of Friday - Fertilizer prices are up as much as 50% in a year after wars in Ukraine and the Middle East disrupted supply - Farm bankruptcies rose 20% in the 12 months through June, per federal filing data; an attorney expects the number to grow - Sen. Grassley wants a ban on US diesel exports; farm groups back a farm bill raising loan limits unchanged since 2018 John Yeley is the seventh generation of his family to run a farm in Illinois just over the Indiana line, on land the Yeleys have worked since 1852. He has spent 26 years at it and plans to keep going. He is less sure he wants that for his 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. “Right now, the way all of this is now, no, I wouldn’t wish it on them,” he told CNN. The way all of this is now: the American farm sector is in what farmers and agriculture experts describe as a painful recession, and the mechanism is worth spelling out, because it is a squeeze from every direction at once. Farming runs on short-term credit — you borrow between planting and harvest and pay it back when the crop sells — so higher interest rates raise the cost of simply existing for a season. The inputs are up: wars in Ukraine and the Middle East cut off raw materials and then fertilizer exports, and fertilizer prices are as much as 50% higher than a year ago, according to experts and farmers. And the output is down: trade disputes, particularly with China, have closed vital markets for crops like soybeans, depressing prices now and threatening market share later. Then there is diesel, the most pressing problem at the moment, because diesel is what actually makes the tractors and combines move. The national average has climbed faster than gasoline and is near its recent all-time high of $6.53; in Illinois it was $6.82 as of Friday. Farmers buy thousands of gallons a year — Yeley normally takes 8,500 gallons twice a year, which at Illinois prices works out to roughly $58,000 a load, call it $116,000 a year of diesel. “This is the first year in my adult life that we have not bought an entire transport load either spring or fall due to fuel cost,” he said. Instead he buys 1,000 or 1,500 gallons at a time, hoping for a price drop. “Unfortunately, it’s not happening.” He is not sure he will turn a profit this season even with corn and soybean prices up. “We’re not a big county, but we’ve had three farmers go under this year,” he said. “I know that’s on the minds of everybody, is it really worth it to keep going on? The stress level is pretty high.” On 10 acres in northern California’s wine country, Sammy Tookey grows tomatoes, corn, melons, peppers, squash, lettuce and chiles, selling about half to a food co-op and half at three farmers’ markets a week. His diesel, cardboard boxes and fertilizer have all gone up by double digits in the past year; he has raised his prices, but not enough to keep pace, because he doesn’t want to scare off customers. He is getting married in late October and wondering how a family fits into the economics. “Being able to have a family and a farm seems almost impossible,” he said. His stepfather, George Kibby, is blunter. He retired in July after 40 years in the industry when the Orange County land he leased was sold for housing. “Us little farmers don’t have much of a chance,” he said. “You work so hard not making money.” The aggregate numbers are starting to show it. Farm bankruptcies rose 20% in the 12 months ending in June compared with a year earlier, according to federal bankruptcy filing data, and Tom Ajamie, an attorney active in the farming sector, thinks that is the early part of the curve. “A lot of these farmers are on the edge,” he said. “So yeah, It’s a 20% increase right now, but what happens in the next two, four, five months? A lot of farmers are just barely clinging on right now. You will see that number increase, I guarantee it.” Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a fifth-generation farmer, says most farms he knows expect to lose money this year after losing money last year — and that is where the credit mechanism turns vicious, because a farm that loses money year after year eventually stops being a good credit risk and cannot borrow the money it needs to keep farming at all. Washington has ideas. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has pressed the Trump administration to ban US diesel exports for immediate relief, though many energy experts doubt that would actually lower prices. The American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups want the new farm bill, which has cleared the House and would, among other things, raise federal farm loan limits that have not changed since 2018. “You get into the lame duck session, and I think we can find a bipartisan path forward on a lot of things,” said John Newton, the Farm Bureau’s vice president of public policy and economic analysis, referring to the window after the midterms. Even if all of it happens, none of it helps the farmers harvesting right now. Many of the farmers CNN spoke to described feeling like bystanders to decisions made elsewhere. Lehman’s version of the point is the sharpest: “Farmers are used to dealing with unpredictability with weather, you know, soil conditions, livestock,” he said. “Policy decisions that have put farmers at the right in the front of economic damage - that’s what’s very frustrating.” A farm that has survived since 1852 is, by construction, a machine for absorbing bad weather. Whether it can absorb fuel prices, fertilizer shocks, trade wars and interest rates simultaneously is apparently a separate question, and at the moment the seventh generation is not recommending the answer to the eighth.