MOUNT AYR, Iowa — It’s a humid and hazy Wednesday afternoon in this Ringgold County community, but the traffic is relatively brisk around the town square.

People come and go into shops and other businesses or walk into the courthouse carrying paperwork. A couple others stop and look at the community’s tribute to NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who grew up on a farm in the county and attended high school here.

The rapid rise of inflation was caused by a number of sources including spending demand and a housing shortage.

David Peters, Extension sociologist with Iowa State University, recently completed work comparing the impact of inflation on rural consumers from 2021 to 2022.

It’s a cost that’s hard to miss when driving around the country, but farmers are feeling the effects of high fuel prices this summer.

Chris Lindner, a farmer from Keokuk, Iowa, said he has especially felt the rise in his trucking company.

GLADBROOK, Iowa — When Tandi Davis and her crew at the Hometown Family Market are stocking the shelves these days, they know what will be available and at what price is going to vary. It always has. It’s just that now it varies more.

“It just depends from week to week,” Davis says of the small-town grocery store. “It’s kind of random.”

THOMPSONVILLE, Ill. — Sherma Dorris has been hit with a one-two punch, but she’s still standing.

The owner of Talk of the Town Café in this Franklin County, Illinois, community was forced to update prices on her menu in January when the state’s minimum wage automatically increased. Now inflation is forcing her to get out her marker again.

For livestock producers, high grain prices along with other high input costs are making it harder to be profitable, said Lee Schulz, Extension livestock economist with Iowa State University.

“It’s not just feed costs that are up, it’s diesel, propane, gasoline, labor cost and availability, and machinery, equipment and repairs. Everything costs more today than it has,” he said.

Ag economists and ag lenders are trying to interpret what the Federal Reserve’s historic bump in interest rates in June along with still-soaring inflation will mean for farmers.

The current rate of inflation is no surprise to one lender.

In small towns and on farms across the Midwest, people are making decisions about their farms, their businesses and their households as their dollars buy less than they did last year.

Garrett Hawkins farms in St. Clair County, Missouri, and he serves as president of Missouri Farm Bureau. On a hot day in early July, he was enjoying the county fair, watching his son win for his chickens. But the challenges facing farmers and rural people were on Hawkins’ mind as well.