By Julie Ingwersen

CHICAGO, Feb 18 (Reuters) – U.S. farmers, though punished by slumping prices after last year’s monster corn harvest, are expected to cut back only slightly on their plantings of the grain in 2026 as they brace for a fourth straight year of narrow profit margins or even losses.

Farmers expect corn, the most widely grown U.S. crop, to hew close to break-even levels this year, supported by strong usage. Some see soybeans as riskier, given rising competition from Brazil and a volatile U.S. trade relationship with top buyer China.

“Right now, you absolutely cannot make money on beans,” said Tim Gregerson, who farms in eastern Nebraska. “You can probably break even on corn, but you are going to have to have an extraordinary yield, or a price increase,” Gregerson said.

Most growers in America’s Midwest farm belt grow both crops, alternating what gets planted on each field from year to year to boost soil health. Many add wheat, sorghum, cotton or other crops to their rotations. But among farmers who have some flexible acres where they can plant anything, many see corn as their best bet.

Planting decisions for 2026, hashed out in the winter months, mark the first step in determining the amount of grain produced in the world’s largest corn exporting nation and the second-biggest soybean supplier after Brazil. 

Decisions are particularly challenging this year after the U.S. Agriculture Department made unprecedented revisions in January to its estimate of the last season’s harvested corn acreage, which, along with larger-than-expected estimates of the 2025 corn yield and stocks on hand as of December 1, pushed down prices.

Ahead of the USDA’s annual outlook forum this week, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average projected corn plantings for 2026 at 94.9 million acres, down about 4% from last year’s 89-year high, but still the second-most corn acres in 13 years. The poll put soybean plantings at 84.9 million acres, in line with the 10-year average and up from the 81 million acres seeded in 2025, a six-year low.

U.S. farmers grew the biggest corn crop in history last year at more than 17 billion bushels, stuffing the nation’s grain bins and weighing on Chicago Board of Trade corn futures.

However, a record pace of export sales and robust demand from ethanol producers has kept a floor under prices as acreage ideas for 2026 take shape. 

Even with rising costs for inputs such as seeds and fertilizer, CBOT December corn futures, representing the 2026 harvest, are hovering near $4.60 a bushel, close to break-even levels for farmers. 

“The market is signaling, ‘We don’t want you to cut too many corn acres.’ We don’t need as many as last year, but with today’s demand base, it’s not like we need a huge drop,” said Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist with North Dakota State University.

PRESSURES IN FARM COUNTRY

Some U.S. farmers are struggling to stay solvent, even with increased government aid payments.  

Soybeans cost less to grow, and demand from domestic crushers and the burgeoning biofuels industry should help offset diminished export sales due to trade tensions with China, by far the world’s largest buyer. China has purchased 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans since a late-October trade truce. 

But prospects of future U.S. soy exports are uncertain ahead of a planned April meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, farmers in Brazil have begun to reap a record-large soy harvest that should dominate the global soy trade.

“The soybean market is more of a political football than the corn market right now,” said Dan O’Brien, an economist with Kansas State University.

BIG CORN YIELDS

Corn typically yields more than triple the grain per acre compared to soybeans. While a large output pressures prices, individual farmers can earn more. Last year’s national corn yield was the highest on record at 186.5 bushels per acre, and state records were set in the No. 3 and 4 growing states of Minnesota and Nebraska as well as states farther on the fringe of the Corn Belt, like North Dakota.

As they finish their cropping plans for 2026, farmers say they are looking for ways to cut costs. In Nebraska, Gregerson has stopped buying new machinery and has found ways to cut fertilizer use. He is considering cutting back on herbicide applications, but doing so would mean staying close to the farm throughout the growing season to scout crops especially closely.

“When you do that, you have live and die in a sprayer. You don’t go on vacation in the spring or the summer. You have got to be so timely on killing your weeds.”

In North Dakota, farmer Phil Volk says growers in his area are delaying machinery repairs, skipping niceties like growth-promoting seed treatments on soybeans, and devoting most of their input costs to corn, his most profitable crop in 2025. Volk expects to expand his corn acreage this spring by 15% compared to last year.

“They are going to cut as many expenses on soybeans (as possible) and pour all the juice to corn,” Volk said.

(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen. Editing by Emily Schmall and David Gregorio)

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