Bankruptcy Attorney Joe Peiffer: It’s Time for Tough Decisions for Some Farmers

Fall brought the early warning about what is likely ahead for Joe Peiffer, a longtime farm bankruptcy attorney in Hiawatha, Iowa. More farmers than he can remember reached out for assistance in August and September, which signals that the typical busier time post-harvest could be even busier this year.

“You have to spend time with them,” Peiffer told American Farmland Owner regarding his conversations with farm families in financial distress, “You have to give them time to process.”

It is a situation that Peiffer unfortunately remembers well from when his parents faced the burden of obligations outweighing income potential on their Delaware County farm during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s.

Joe Peiffer bio:

• Ag & Business Legal Strategies – President and Founding Attorney

• American Board of Certification – certification in business bankruptcy

• Former bankruptcy judge law clerk

Peiffer said the decision about whether to remain in farming can be an internal struggle for people, a battle between the brain and heart.

“The rational part of the brain says, ‘Okay, sell it and move on.’” Peiffer said. “But then you’ve got the fight-or-flight part… that just says, ‘My back’s against the wall, but…I’m gonna do it.’”

The challenge for any advisor, he added, is “to get the rational part of the brain to be doing the thinking.”

But time is not a luxury farmers always have. There are deadlines, lenders, mounting interest, and unpredictable markets. “You have to get them moving on it, because if you don’t get them moving, nothing good will happen,” Peiffer said.

He offered a saying that he has used frequently when explaining the exhausting process that some farm families endure as they consider selling, bankruptcy, or a major overhaul of their operations: “Indecision’s a decision to let others decide for you.”

Making the Decision About Whether to Sell the Farm or File for Bankruptcy

Peiffer has worked with farm families for more than four decades. That is why what his northeast Iowa firm experienced during the fall alarmed him.  

“In the last week of August to the first week of September, we signed up five new farm clients,” Peiffer reported. “Most of them are crop farmers… and in every case, they’re in dire situations.”

That volume alone would be troubling, but the severity of the individual cases was even more striking. One operation, Peiffer said, is “upside down, two to one. Assets worth a little over $7 million, liabilities north of $16 million…That’s one of the worst I’ve seen, and I’ve been at this 44 years.”

He explained that most crop farmers avoid speaking with bankruptcy attorneys until after harvest because banks prefer to keep operations running through the growing season. But this year, the reckoning arrived earlier. It is a sign, Peiffer believes, of deeper financial instability.

RELATED: Farm bankruptcies have risen across the country in 2025, which this American Farmland Owner report tracked during the summer.

More Farmers Seeking Bankruptcy Earlier in 2025

Some of the farmers Peiffer met in August and September suffered from the classic trap of assuming next year will be better. “They’d stuck their head in the sand for a long time… ignored the signs that were out there,” he said.

Many producers, he added, “don’t like to deal with cash flows… don’t like to deal with balance sheets.”

Others were undone by easy credit and pandemic-era loans. The Small Business Administration’s non-COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, Peiffer noted, lulled some into a false sense of security.

“That was almost like free money… except you gotta pay it back. If you’re not watching what you’re doing with the money, and it goes out the back door, you still gotta pay it back,” he said.

One client owned a promising grain elevator and trans-loading business but “hadn’t really pushed the trans-loading” until his financial crisis forced him to do so.

Another “had no financial acumen whatsoever,” Peiffer said — a situation that could have been avoided with more attention to cash flow.

Peiffer shared a lesson from his late brother, former Vice President of Underwriting at Farmer Mac. To truly know whether a farm is viable, he said, producers must track earned net worth, not inflated land values.

“If we go in and put in just what the appraised value is, now we’ve got inflation talking,” he said, “That has nothing to do with, is the business healthy?”

Traditionally, distressed farmers begin contacting attorneys in November or December, once the year’s numbers are tallied. But this year many are delaying even longer, waiting to see what financial support the federal government will provide.

“Many are out there waiting…” Peiffer said, referencing the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program Phase 2 and potential additional assistance discussed by the Trump administration. But he warned producers not to count on Washington to solve their underlying problems.

“Any bailout is a band-aid. And in many instances, we need major surgery,” Peiffer said.

He thinks President Donald Trump’s fixation of higher tariffs are adding to farmers’ woes. “Basically gutted 30 or 40 years of solid marketing that the farmers have done,” Peiffer lamented.

With early financial distress showing up months sooner than usual, Peiffer fears late 2025 could bring an even larger wave of bankruptcies. The core issues — rising interest costs, volatile markets, high input prices, and years of thin margins — are not going away.

For farm families facing nearly impossible choices, Peiffer’s advice is both compassionate and urgent: take the time to process, but don’t ignore the calendar. “If you don’t get them moving, nothing good will happen,” he suggested.