By Debbie Carlson

As grain farmers prepare for spring planting, any optimism for the coming season is being tempered by the economic reality that they may face another money-losing year. This was looking to be the case even before the conflict began in Iran, which triggered a surge in fertilizer prices.

Input costs skyrocketed in 2022 after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war and remain elevated, while commodity prices sit under production costs. The American Farm Bureau says many row-crop farmers are looking at four or five straight years of operational losses, even after accounting for crop insurance payments and ad-hoc assistance.

Philip Nelson, a fourth-generation farmer in LaSalle County, Illinois, who was recently elected as Illinois Farm Bureau president, says the profits farmers made when crop prices were high a few years ago have eroded and balance sheets are tight.

“If you adjust for inflation, we’ve got the same commodity prices we had in 1974, and at the same time, the input costs have quadrupled,” Nelson says.

Input costs aren’t the only issue clouding farmers’ outlooks for spring planting. Last year, the U.S. harvested a record corn crop of roughly 18 billion bushels, and that heavy supply continues to weigh on the market, says Sean Lusk, vice president, commercial hedging division for Walsh Trading. In addition, the outlook for soybeans remains mixed as farmers wait on the Trump administration to decide on a potential expansion of the biomass-based diesel program that could offset some of the lost export market share to China amid recent trade tensions.

In a challenging year, risk management tools and fine-tuning marketing plans take on added importance.

Shifting Farmer Sentiment

The Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer weakened in December, reflecting farmers’ declining long-term outlook about U.S. soybean export prospects as competition from Brazil increases. More recently, the focus has shifted to tensions between current conditions and future expectations, with farmers more optimistic about the former than the latter.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service forecasts net farm income to fall by 2.6% year-over-year in inflation-adjusted terms. The decline is mitigated in part by the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program and the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, USDA’s aid packages for farmers to offset losses because of the trade environment. However, the American Farm Bureau says most producers likely will still lose money.

University of Illinois agricultural researchers forecast crop prices to be marginally higher in 2026. As of early March, CME Group September 2026 Corn and Soybean futures are trading around $4.55 and $11.32 per bushel, respectively.

Price gains compared to last year will likely be offset by small increases in overall costs with yields at trend levels. Break-even prices to cover all costs without government support are in the $4.70-$4.90 range for corn and $10.80-$11.25 range for soybeans, close to or above current market prices and pricing opportunities for the 2026 crop.

David Iserman, a fifth-generation farmer based in Streator, Illinois, is sanguine about the growing season, based on those figures. “We’re definitely either breaking even, if we’re lucky, or losing money,” he says.

Cost-Cutting Measures

Annual inputs, such as seed, fertilizer and chemicals, are higher than last year. Corn consumes more inputs than soybeans, and that may factor into what U.S. farmers plant this spring – though markets won’t know for sure until the 2026 Prospective Plantings report is released on March 31. However, many farmers typically still stick with a traditional 50/50 corn and soybean rotation for agronomic reasons, which is what Iserman and Nelson plan to do.

Both producers have experienced lean times before and are looking at ways to cut costs. Iserman says fertilizer is his number one cost. He practices no-till farming on his soybeans and strip-till for corn. In strip-till farming, producers till a narrow strip of soil for fertilizer on the corn, which minimizes loss.

Iserman may tweak how much he uses and is studying the cost, using software to gauge his returns on his fertilizer use.

“We’re looking at all of our fertilizer inputs from the standpoint of not yield, but profit. For every dollar I put in, I want to get $1 back. I don’t care about winning a yield contest. I care about return,” he says.

Nelson also says he might cut back slightly on fertilizer use because he has built it up in the soil, giving him an option to cut costs.

Fertilizer Prices Stay High

Fertilizer remains the most volatile and significant non-land cost, often accounting for 20% to 30% of total production expenses, according to USDA data.

Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer at StoneX, says prices remain significantly higher than a year ago. In early 2026, a barge of urea at the port of New Orleans traded around $450 per ton, compared to $389 per ton in early 2025. Nitrogen prices are also higher versus a year ago.

Three global factors drive this inflation, Linville says. China, a major global supplier, has indicated it may not export urea until August 2026, removing millions of tons from the global market. In Europe, persistent high natural gas costs have limited nitrogen production to about 75% of normal since the second half of 2022 because of the Russia-Ukraine war. In the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz is a critical choke point through which three of the top 10 urea exporters must ship their product. As of early March, the Strait of Hormuz is facing a blockade.

To better understand fertilizer costs, some farmers look at the corn-urea and soybean-urea ratio. These ratios position fertilizer costs within the context of crop costs, calculating how many bushels of grain are required to purchase one ton of nutrients.

A lower ratio signals a more favorable time to lock in costs. Currently, with low corn prices and high urea prices, the corn-urea ratio sits near 87 to 90 bushels per ton, a five-year high. To manage this, some farmers are using CME Group’s 10-Ton Urea U.S. Gulf futures contract. Launched last year, this tool allows individual producers to hedge their fertilizer risk in increments more suited to their actual field needs, and options can help limit price risk to the upside. While fertilizer costs were elevated in January, those levels now appear relatively attractive by comparison.

A Changing Approach

“Frankly speaking, we don’t sell all of our grain in one decision. We should be looking at doing the same thing with fertilizer,” Linville says.

He notes that traditionally farmers have looked at their fertilizer purchases annually, but watching prices throughout the year may help them make smarter operational decisions.

Farmers interested in adding the fertilizer ratios as part of their risk management toolkit can start by talking to their local grain elevator, which may give them data stretching back a few years to help them plot trends, he says. With this information, farmers may be able to act on price changes and lock in better prices.

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