An incredibly low snowpack, financial strain from tariffs, and now increased prices for fuel and fertilizer mean farmers are facing a tough year.Twin Falls Neighborhood Reporter Lorien Nettleton spoke with farmers about the curr ent challenges as they prepare to start planting for the 2026 growing season."Its go time," Twin Falls farmer Tyler Hyink said. "Its time to get crops in the ground."Hyink has been busy this spring clearing ditches and preparing them for irrigation season.As the owner and operator of the Bokma Dairy in Twin Falls, Hyink has 2,000 cows to feed and milk every day, so a lot of his time is spent growing feed. WATCH: Twin Falls farmers navigate rising fuel and fertilizer costs Twin Falls farmers navigate rising fuel and fertilizer costs"We basically grow you know, alfalfa, corn, triticale for our cows and that you know kind of stabilizes our market for feed," Hyink said.Hyink says his budget is fairly insulated from recent fluctuations in the prices of fertilizer and diesel fuel, which have risen in the past five weeks as a result of the war with Iran."We have some storage tanks, so we try and buy when its a good price and try and store close to a year's worth of fuel on hand," Hyink said.As for fertilizer, Hyink says the cows produce a lot of nutrients in the form of manure."So most of our fertilizer needs come from the dairy byproduct cow manure," Hyink said. "We spread it on our open ground on the corn ground and or the triticale ground and that gives us nutrients where we use very little purchased fertilizer."While his bottom line is fairly stable so far, that could all change if the Iran conflict continues to increase prices."Were definitely worried about whats going on," Hyink said.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. ...read more read less