BARN TALK
The Unfiltered Voice of Rural America
Issue #032 · November 4, 2026
|
|
|
Hey folks, 292 farmers filed Chapter 12 bankruptcy in the first nine months of the year, and a Maine ambulance service that has run since 1966 shuts down November 30. Grain and cattle both sold off on the week, USDA found screwworm in a Texas elk, and then we get to a rancher who wrote the book on the cattle cycle.
In this issue
| 292 farm bankruptcies in nine months, up nearly 19 percent, with Arkansas out front |
| Maine's only all-volunteer ambulance service stops answering calls November 30 |
| Live cattle lost $10.17 on the week while crude edged up to $104.07 a barrel |
| Screwworm turned up in a Texas elk, the first detection in U.S. wildlife |
| A rancher with no land of his own wrote a book on why the cattle cycle turns |
|
This Week's Episode
Watch on YouTube · Listen on Spotify · or keep scrolling to read it.
|
|
|
|
Live Event Countdown
We're at 3,917 of 10,000 subscribers. Help us get there.
Hit 10,000 and we throw a live event at the barn. Subscribers get first crack at tickets.
|
|
More Farmers Are Filing Chapter 12, Up Nearly 19 Percent This Year
Federal court data shows 292 Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies in the first nine months of 2026.
The National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas released its third quarter numbers, and DTN covered them October 30. Federal court data shows 292 Chapter 12 cases filed from January through September, up nearly 19 percent from the same stretch of 2025. In the third quarter alone, 91 farmers filed. Chapter 12 is the bankruptcy chapter written for family farmers and fishermen, so these are family operations trying to restructure and keep going.
Where the filings are
Arkansas led the country in the third quarter with 12 filings and has 32 for the year. Count Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 together and California leads with 25 cases, 13 of them Chapter 11, followed by Arkansas, Indiana, Texas and Missouri. Chapter 11 filings of all kinds rose 11.5 percent through three quarters, though that chapter is not limited to agriculture.
What the count leaves out
Harrison Pittman, who directs the center, told Brownfield he would love to know how many operators simply quit farming without filing, because they had enough equity that they did not need to restructure. Those folks never show up in a bankruptcy count. Analysts tie the climb to high input costs and record farm debt.
|
From the Barn
If your working capital is shrinking, sit down with your lender and your accountant before a note comes due, not after. Chapter 12 exists so a family can keep farming through a restructure, and every option gets bigger the earlier you start the conversation.
|
|
|
Maine's Only All-Volunteer Ambulance Service Shuts Down November 30
The Dennys River Ambulance Service in Washington County, Maine, has answered calls in Pembroke, Dennysville and the Edmunds, Marion and Cathance townships since 1966. It stops operating November 30 because nobody is left to run it, WABI reported October 23. Wayne and Roberta Seeley have been EMTs with the Dennysville Volunteer Fire Department for more than 50 years, they are in their 80s, and they are retiring after nearly two years of trying to recruit replacements.
By the numbers
| 60 years of volunteer service, from 1966 to the end of this month. |
| 6 volunteers are left, down from about 12 at the service's peak. |
| 10 to 12 volunteers is what Wayne Seeley says it takes to cover every hour of every day. |
Who answers next
DownEast EMS already backs the service up and will likely cover the area, but it is unclear who will answer in Dennysville and Pembroke. The volunteers worry a crew from farther away may already be out on another call, and that neighboring services will bill the towns, which means higher taxes. The Bangor Daily News notes Maine law does not require a town to have ambulance service at all, and a member of the state's legislative EMS commission called the closure a warning for Maine and the country.
|
From the Barn
A squad like this runs on volunteers until the volunteers age out. Find out who answers the 911 call in your township and how many of them are under 50. Then go take the EMT course yourself, or point a teenager at it.
|
|
|
|
This Week's Sponsor
Sawyer and Tork Headline HayCon in Vegas
Barn Talk takes the stage at the Flamingo in Las Vegas, December 10 and 11, during NFR week. Two days of hay and ag talk, 20+ speakers, 30+ vendors, a hands-on baler school. Come say hi.
Get Tickets →
|
|
This week's numbers
|
Corn (Dec '26)
$4.47 3/4 /bu
▼ $0.08 1/4 on the week
|
|
Soybeans (Nov '26)
$12.22 1/4 /bu
▼ $0.34 1/4 on the week
|
|
|
Chicago Wheat (Dec '26)
$6.03 1/2 /bu
▼ $0.21 1/2 on the week
|
|
Live Cattle (Dec '26)
$220.95 /cwt
▼ $10.17 on the week
|
|
|
Lean Hogs (Dec '26)
$58.87 /cwt
▼ $6.70 on the week
|
|
Crude Oil (Dec '26)
$104.07 /bbl
▲ $0.80 on the week
|
Tork's Picks
|
Bitcoin
$77,223 USD
▼ $3,879 on the week
|
|
Tesla
$399.81 /share
▲ $27.59 on the week
|
This isn't financial advice. I'm just a farmer with an opinion.
|
Tork's Take
Corn gave back 8 1/4 cents, soybeans 34 1/4 and wheat 21 1/2, while live cattle dropped $10.17 and hogs lost $6.70, so the whole board went red but crude. If you still have grain unpriced, run your breakeven against these new numbers before you decide what you are waiting for.
|
|
|
|
Picture a man walking pasture on his family's place, a rancher who does not own an acre of ground himself. Garth Gatson buys heifer calves and sells them as pairs, he is a deacon at his church with four kids at home, and he wrote a book on the cattle cycle. He says it took about 100 days to write and about 10 years to live.
The book is Abel's Rally: A Story of a Cattle Cycle. It started as Abel's Revenge, until he dropped the word revenge because farmers and ranchers have been feuding since Cain and Abel and he did not want to hand the crop farmers a reason to be mad. The idea took shape when he asked strangers on Twitter to name a cattle-themed yacht, a joke about where he thought prices were headed, from a man who does not own a kayak.
“By the time you can see the reason, so can everybody else, and it's already priced into the market.” |
The cycle is simple on paper. The herd gets big and prices get cheap, then the herd shrinks and prices climb, and a full turn runs 10 to 12 years. What stuck with me is why the herd did not rebuild while prices were high. The average cattle producer is 58, a drought stops grass no matter what the market says, interest makes growing a herd a cash furnace, and by the Census of Agriculture the country lost pasture and range at 3 acres a minute from 2017 to 2022.
He is honest about his own spot in it, too. He is still not close to the herd size most people call full-time, and a lot of things work when cattle prices rise 20 percent or more a year. Whether it holds when the cycle turns, he says, he does not know.
Which part of your own operation only works while the good prices last? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
|
|
Four things that caught our eye
| 01 |
A Kansas town is fighting to keep its only school openUSD 417 is weighing a closure of Prairie Heights Elementary in Alta Vista, with the superintendent saying it runs at about half capacity, KSNT reported October 21. The mayor says the process is moving too fast, and the city has been working on a safe routes to school project of nearly $900,000. When the school goes, young families lose one more reason to stay. |
|
| 02 |
Screwworm turns up in a Texas elk, the first case in U.S. wildlifeUSDA confirmed October 21 that an elk taken by a hunter on a Pecos County game ranch carried New World screwworm, and New Mexico separately reported a case in a beef cow in Otero County. Hunters in the area are told to look for maggots in wounds and for animals that seem weak. |
|
| 03 |
A 171-year-old Wisconsin pharmacy closed with a day's noticeCustomers at Corner Drug Hometown Pharmacy in Baraboo learned Wednesday they had until 6 p.m. to pick up prescriptions or go to Walgreens, and the doors were shut by Thursday morning, Civic Media reported October 30. The company blamed pharmacy benefit managers paying less than the cost of the drugs. When the pharmacy goes, the nearest one gets a lot farther away. |
|
| 04 |
USDA will buy $472.5 million of food, $165.5 million of it dairyUnder Section 32, USDA announced October 29 that it will buy dairy, pork, chicken and other products for food banks and nutrition programs. The National Milk Producers Federation called the dairy share timely help for weak milk prices. USDA has not given a buying timeline. |
|
|
|
Barn Talk Trivia
Think you know your stuff?
You buy a 2x4 at the lumber yard to frame a wall, but the board is not really 2 by 4. About how big is it, in inches?
| A. 1.75 by 3.75 |
|
B. 1.25 by 3.25 |
|
| C. 1.9 by 3.9 |
|
D. 1.5 by 3.5 |
|
|
Did You Know?
Before 1896, a farm family had to go to town to get its mail. Rural Free Delivery started that fall as a test on three routes in Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Congress made it permanent in 1902.
|
|
Word of the Week
| PREVAILING WAGE |
The hourly pay and benefits a contractor has to give workers on a government-funded construction job, set to match what that trade is paid in that county. The federal rule comes from the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, and many states have their own. |
|
|
|
|
Sit down with your lender before a note comes due, and find out who answers the call when your township dials 911.
We'll see you in the barn.
Sawyer & Tork
Hosts, Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com
|
|
Know someone who needs this?
Help us reach 10,000 and earn your spot at the live event.
Read online · © 2026 Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com · This week's episode: #EP224
|
|
