Farming is harder than it has been in decades. Since 2022, corn and soybean prices have dropped by as much as 30%, while input costs have only gone up. That squeeze is felt every day on family farms such as mine, which has operated for more than a century in Warren County. Next year, farm income could fall another 23% — a $40 billion decline, one of the steepest drops in the past 30 years. For corn farmers such as me, and thousands more across Illinois, the situation is especially dire: Corn income has fallen 45% since 2022 , reaching its lowest level in 15 years.

Farmers are experts in navigating uncertainty. Weather, markets, pests — we plan for the unpredictable. But what’s harder to plan for is a government that can’t seem to function. Now that Congress is finally getting

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