FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas has recorded more agricultural bankruptcy filings than any state except California since 2021, according to a new data project launched this week by the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas.
The state logged 83 filings between January 2021 and June 2026. Only California, with 95, had more. Georgia and Iowa followed with 82 each.
Nearly all of the Arkansas cases, 80 of the 83, were filed under Chapter 12, the bankruptcy chapter reserved for family farmers and fishermen. That is the highest Chapter 12 count of any state in the country. The remaining three Arkansas filings came under Chapter 11.
The numbers come from the Data on Economic and Bankruptcy Trends in Agriculture project, or DEBT, launched by the National Agricultural Law Center and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. The center is a unit of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture in Fayetteville.
The project maps 1,401 agricultural bankruptcy filings nationwide across both chapters. Farm bankruptcies have historically been tracked through Chapter 12 alone, but the project found about 14 percent of agricultural filings, 201 cases, were made under Chapter 11 instead.
Chapter 12 gives eligible family farms a process to reorganize debt while continuing to operate. Chapter 11, often called the reorganization chapter, allows corporations, partnerships and some individuals to restructure without liquidating all assets. Farms that do not qualify for Chapter 12, or that choose not to use it, can end up in Chapter 11 and go uncounted in traditional farm bankruptcy statistics.
Eligibility matters. Chapter 12 requires farmers to earn the majority of their income from farming, a bar many operations that depend on off-farm jobs cannot clear. Counting Chapter 11 cases captures some of those farms for the first time.
“These filings can offer a clearer picture of the financial realities facing U.S. agriculture for attorneys, policymakers, researchers, lenders and others seeking to understand and respond to those challenges,” said Harrison Pittman, director of the National Agricultural Law Center.
To find the Chapter 11 cases, the two organizations worked with analytics company SAS, which built an automated process cross-referencing federal court records in PACER with publicly available USDA Farm Service Agency data. When an entity appeared both in a bankruptcy filing and as a Farm Service Agency program recipient, the project counted it as an agricultural operation.
Because not every farm participates in Farm Service Agency programs, the Chapter 11 totals may undercount agricultural filings. All 1,200 Chapter 12 filings nationwide were included, since only farmers and fishermen can file under that chapter.
A worsening trend
The dashboard arrives as farm bankruptcies climb nationwide.
Chapter 12 filings rose 46 percent in 2025 to 315 cases, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the second consecutive annual increase. Arkansas led the nation with 33 filings, nearly double its 2024 total of 17 and the most in the state this century.
The pace has accelerated in 2026. Farmers filed 62 Chapter 12 cases nationwide in April, the highest monthly total in more than six years, according to Epiq AACER bankruptcy data reported by Law360. At least 158 cases were filed in the first four months of the year, with Arkansas, Missouri and California leading the country. The USDA projects 330 filings for the full year.
The filings remain well below historical peaks. Chapter 12 cases reached 599 in 2019 and topped 700 in 2010 and 2003.
Why farms are failing
Economists point to a multi-year squeeze rather than a single shock. Commodity prices fell sharply after their 2022 peak while production costs did not follow.
“Lagging commodity prices are a significant part of the problem, but it’s just one piece,” said Ryan Loy, extension agricultural economist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Loy said years of declining prices and rising input costs have created a perfect storm in which farmers, especially those who rent their land, have burned through capital and reserves waiting for a better year that has not come.
The Arkansas Farm Bureau estimates production costs on some inputs have risen 30 to 75 percent in recent years. The organization says Arkansas soybean, rice, corn and cotton farmers lost an average of $243 per acre in 2025.
Debt is compounding the pressure. The USDA estimates total farm debt will reach a record $624.7 billion in 2026, with interest expenses climbing to a record $33 billion. Net farm income is forecast to fall to $153.4 billion.
Rice explains much of the Arkansas picture. The state is the nation’s leading rice producer, and rice has not received as much emergency federal support as Midwestern commodity crops, according to Kansas State University agricultural economist Allen Featherstone. Arkansas rice growers were projected to lose more than $200 per acre in 2025 even after supplemental assistance.
Kenneth Graves, chairman of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association, told KATV that lender conversations suggest a quarter to a third of Arkansas row crop farmers could be forced out of farming if conditions do not improve.
Federal aid has not closed the gap
Congress has responded with billions in ad hoc assistance. The Emergency Commodity Assistance Program distributed $9.3 billion for 2024 losses, and the USDA launched an $11 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance Program in February to carry producers until higher reference prices under last year’s budget law begin paying out after Oct. 1.
Even with that aid, the Farm Bureau estimates row crop returns stayed negative, with accumulated losses exceeding $50 billion over the past three crop years. Bridge payment dollars have also skewed toward corn, soybeans and wheat, which account for more than three quarters of the program, leaving rice states like Arkansas with a smaller share.
Congress has extended the 2018 farm bill through Sept. 30 while a new farm bill remains unfinished, roughly three years behind schedule.
Bankruptcy filings are a lagging indicator, reflecting prolonged financial stress rather than sudden downturns. Analysts note some of the current wave may represent filings deferred from the early 2020s, when pandemic-era payments made row crop farming unusually profitable. Livestock producers have fared better than row crop operations, a divide that leaves Arkansas squarely on the wrong side.
The DEBT dashboard, which allows filtering by chapter and filing year, is available on the National Agricultural Law Center’s website at nationalaglawcenter.org/debtproject.
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