Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2020
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Coronavirus<br />
shockwave<br />
Before COVID-19 was even<br />
talked about, <strong>Eastern</strong> <strong>Iowa</strong>’s<br />
farmers were grappling<br />
with low prices and trade<br />
war uncertainties. Now, the<br />
pandemic has delivered yet<br />
one more layer of difficulty<br />
as farmers learn how to<br />
strategically operate in the<br />
new normal<br />
BY Nancy Mayfield<br />
eastern iowa farmer<br />
Brothers Ryan and Cory Krukow began<br />
farming together in Camanche when they<br />
were teenagers. Now in their 40s – young<br />
as farmers go – they’ve navigated their<br />
share of challenges over the last 25 years.<br />
Low grain prices, high input costs, the impact of<br />
trade wars, decisions to diversify or simplify, an uncooperative<br />
Mother Nature.<br />
But the Krukows, like other farmers in <strong>Eastern</strong><br />
<strong>Iowa</strong>, agree they’ve never come up against anything<br />
quite like COVID-19.<br />
“It’s affecting everyone and everything,” Ryan<br />
Krukow said in late May, when the full force of the<br />
first wave of the pandemic was sending shockwaves<br />
through the nation’s agriculture industry.<br />
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Krukow said of the hurdles<br />
farmers continue to face.<br />
Corn prices were already low when personal travel<br />
52 <strong>Eastern</strong> <strong>Iowa</strong> <strong>Farmer</strong> | fall <strong>2020</strong> eifarmer.com
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