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Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

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Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Trump’s Iran war is pushing American farmers to the brink

Skyrocketing costs, unfair markets, and poor policy are pressuring farmers thanks to the ongoing conflict

Published May 15, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)

The rain in Windsor, North Carolina, is way behind schedule. Despite the seat of Bertie County being crisscrossed with rivers and creeks and lying on the estuary of the Albemarle Sound, local farmer Charles Harden reckons the area is suffering from a 12-inch rain shortfall in the first five months of 2026.

“It’s been terrible dry,” Harden told Salon. Windsor usually gets about 50 inches of rain a year. That’s bad news for his company, Clovergrass Produce, and its crop of soybeans, cucumbers, peanuts and corn plus his herd of beef cattle. “We’re starting off this year in a drought,” Harden said. “We ended last year in a drought.”

“Right now is harder than any time in the history of our country for agriculture,” Harden said. He should have some idea of hard times — Harden is a ninth-generation North Carolinian farmer, his family having been in Bertie County since 1771.

“We’ve been through a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, two world wars, and two depressions,” Harden said. “So we’ve seen it all.”

Things were already difficult for independent producers like the Harden family, who had to weather the whims of corporate farming operations and distributors. The previous year had seen farmers across the nation struggle to keep their heads above water in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and subsequent agricultural trade war with China. A subsequent $12 billion relief package from the Trump administration helped avert total disaster.

Then, Trump joined Israel in war against Iran, causing trade through the Strait of Hormuz to come to a screeching halt. Prices of everything from plastics and helium to........

© Salon