If heading into 2026 feels a little like déjà vu, you’re picking up the same vibes Chris Barron, president and CEO of Iowa-based Ag View Solutions, is experiencing. He believes the next couple of years will echo the last big downturn farmers weathered a decade ago.
“It’s kind of scary that 2025, ’26 and ’27 look essentially like a repeat of 2015, ’16 and ’17,” Barron says. “If you remember that time frame and made it through, buckle down because I think we’re going there again.”
He says one of the clearest signals farmers are about to experience a repeat of a decade ago is based on the 2026 cost-of-production data from Ag View Solutions’ clients, who are based in 23 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces:
- Soybeans: About $11.87 per bushel based on a 65-bu. average yield
- Corn: About $4.69 per bushel (before basis) on a 223-bu. average, with many growers needing at least $4.85.
Some growers raising non-GMO seed beans or getting premium contracts can still make soybeans compete. But for many farms, soybeans are the weak link in the current economic cycle.
Right now, Ag View Solutions clients are expected to plant roughly 62% of their acres to corn and 38% to soybeans for 2026 — essentially the same as 2025. Barron says he doesn’t expect many acres to shift away from this mix to more soybeans “unless something really changes.”
Given current price relationships and crop insurance guarantees, Ag View Solutions data shows about a $50-per-acre advantage to corn over soybeans for the year ahead. Even if the dollars trend lower, he says corn often pencils out better because of gross revenue and risk management tools.
More Cost Pressures Heading Into 2026
It’s no secret production costs are increasing heading into the next season. Some of the key factors include:
Overhead costs (what Barron calls ‘”return to management”) for family and employee expenses, including phones, fuel and business-paid personal expenses, are up nearly 5%. After the past year or two of what Barron describes as hard belt-tightening, he says deferred spending is “snapping back” at higher levels.
Land rents are holding mostly steady, supported by higher property taxes and outside investor demand.
Interest expense is climbing as operating lines grow.
Fertilizer costs are a mixed bag. On corn, fertilizer costs are up about 7%, even though Barron believes most farms are staying with removal-rate applications. On soybeans, he says fertility costs will be lower, mainly because growers are putting less fertilizer on their bean acres and leaning harder on corn nutrients.
Machinery and equipment costs are also inching higher for the year ahead.
This Is Not A Repeat Of The 1980s
Despite the “red” many farmers will see on their spreadsheets in the year ahead, Barron says the current period is not a repeat of the 1980s farm crisis, for two key reasons:
- Farmer equity is strong. Debt-to-asset ratios remain healthy for many U.S. growers, even if cash is tight.
- Many farmer exits are voluntary. Today, many farmers are choosing to retire or scale back in order to protect equity.
Barron offers a recent example: “I got a call the other day on 7,000 acres, a 45-year-old farmer saying, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore. I’ve got a $5 million equity position, and I’m not going to go for a couple more years and chew away another million dollars. I’m just going to be done.’”
Strategies for the Current Climate
To survive — and potentially thrive — in this “repeat” cycle, Barron suggests focusing on these four areas in the year ahead:
- Do the high-dollar work. Barron says the “$500-an-hour” work is crunching numbers in the farm office. “Know your true costs, stress-test budgets, analyze each profit center. A few hours spent with good numbers can be worth far more than another round in the tractor,” he says.
- Protect yield. He advises against cutting seed, chemistry or other inputs that protect or enhance yield “just to save a few cents per bushel.”
- Right-size your operation. Barron says some of the most successful turnarounds he’s seen with operations lately have come when farmers “right-sizes” — they’re doing less, but doing it better — instead of trying to be everything to everyone.
- Use collaborative models. Barron says he is seeing more farmers share equipment and labor with their neighbors to spread fixed costs without extra capital.
Opportunity Will Still Knock
During a Top Producer podcast, Barron told Host Paul Neiffer that the tight times ahead will create new land-rent opportunities for some farmers who want to expand. What commonly happens when margins get tight is some farmers pull back, and that’s when expansion possibilities open up for others.
“We’ve had numerous clients call us about opportunities to rent land and not like in small amounts. When times are tight and when things aren’t good, that’s when these opportunities present themselves,” he says.
Barron’s message for those farmers in expansion mode: have your numbers, working capital and lender relationships in order now, so if the right block of ground comes available, you can move quickly and confidently on it.
If you’re interested in the ROI spreadsheet Barron’s team uses to analyze market trends, email cbarron@agviewsolutions.com.
Hear the complete discussion between Barron and Flory on Farm Journal TV. Also, you can listen to the Top Producer podcast discussion between Barron and Neiffer at the link below:
