Agricultural bankruptcies in the United States are at least 16% higher than previously recognized, according to a new dataset that counts, for the first time, farm-related Chapter 11 filings alongside Chapter 12 cases. The finding comes from the Data on Economic and Bankruptcy Trends project, released by the National Agricultural Law Center together with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

The project identified 1,401 agricultural bankruptcies filed between January 2021 and June 2026. Of those, 1,200 were Chapter 12 filings — the chapter designed specifically for family farmers and fishermen and, until now, the sole yardstick of farm financial distress in the legal system. The remaining 201 were filed under Chapter 11.

Why were Chapter 11 filings invisible?

Not every struggling farm operation qualifies for Chapter 12. Many farm families rely on off-farm income to keep the business afloat, which can disqualify them from the chapter's eligibility rules. Others, squeezed by high input and equipment costs, carry debt above the ceiling Chapter 12 allows.

For those operations, Chapter 11 offers a path to keep operating while restructuring and repaying debts. But because those filings were never classified as agricultural, the number of farms in financial distress was systematically undercounted.

The National Agricultural Law Center's Elizabeth Rumley, senior staff attorney at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the gap meant those additional indicators of financial stress went unrecognized until now.

How does the DEBT project work?

The analytics firm SAS built an automated process that cross-references Public Access to Court Electronic Records — the federal court docket system — with USDA Farm Service Agency program recipient data. When an entity appeared in both a bankruptcy filing and the FSA recipient list, researchers flagged it as an agricultural operation.

The result is an interactive map covering January 2021 through June 2026. Users can:

• Filter filings by bankruptcy chapter, year and quarter
• View individual cases by location
• Access links to the corresponding federal court records
• Download the underlying dataset

The method has limits. Not all financially stressed farmers file for bankruptcy. Not all farm bankruptcies were captured in the dataset. Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 filings — also available to farm households — remain uncounted in the current version.

What does the 2026 pace signal?

First-half 2026 data points to rising distress. Through June 2026, at least 208 agricultural bankruptcies were recorded — 177 under Chapter 12 and 31 under Chapter 11.

At the halfway point of the year, filings had already reached 61% of the total recorded in all of 2025. If the pace holds, 2026 would close with approximately 416 agricultural bankruptcies — roughly 22% above the 2025 total.

The dataset does not solve farm financial stress, but it gives lenders, attorneys, policymakers and researchers a fuller picture of geographic patterns and emerging challenges across the sector. For lenders pricing risk and policymakers weighing relief, the revision adds 201 previously uncounted cases to the five-year record — and the 2026 trajectory suggests the count will keep climbing.