A farm crisis on par to what was observed in the early 1980s could be coming, especially since the US Senate passed a bill late last week that makes it more accessible for farmers with larger debt loads to file for bankruptcy protection, reported Reuters.

The bipartisan bill, designated as the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019, increases the total debt load of how much a farmer can have to meet the qualifications to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy, to $10 million from the prior $4 million ceiling.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, operating a farm today involves much higher costs than it did three decades ago. Experts say without a complete reform of the law, mom-and-pop farmers would be subjected to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which is expensive and chaotic.