Despite sharply contrasting crop conditions, two Midwest farmers report similar margin pressure from elevated input costs for fuel, fertilizer and financing as they prepare for harvest and plan for 2027.
For northeast Iowa farmer Mark Mueller, 2026 is shaping up to be one of his best production years ever. In southwest Minnesota, Ryan Vos is dealing with what he describes as his driest season on record.
Yet both farmers are approaching harvest with the same concern: How much more can it cost to put a crop in the bin?
Costs are forcing both farmers to scrutinize expenses heading into harvest and 2027 planning.
“I’m probably going to have one of my one or two best corn crops and soybean crops ever,” Mueller told AgriTalk host Chip Flory Wednesday. “And last year, I had one of my three or four best … So, we’ve had two good years in a row. But I’m frankly trying to think how to save money.”
Fuel Hits The Bottom Line
Mueller’s diesel bill illustrates how quickly costs can change.
He owns a 5,000-gallon bulk diesel tank that he typically fills after planting. In May 2025, he paid $2.29 per gallon. This year, he recently bought half that volume for harvest at about $5 per gallon.
The price moved another 13 cents higher the morning he made the purchase.
That kind of price movement has changed the way Mueller thinks about operating costs.
“I’m starting to think about things in terms of how much corn do I have to sell to cover this expense,” he says. “I never used to do that.”
For Vos, high fuel costs are colliding with a completely different problem: dry soils.
With fields already hard and dry, he expects to cut back on post-harvest tillage — both because the conditions make tillage more difficult and because every pass burns more diesel.
“With how hard the ground is and how dry the ground is, it’s going to make tillage harder,” Vos says. “With the increased fuel prices and the lack of moisture, I think we’re going to be doing a little bit less tillage this year than in most years.”
Vos expects other farmers in southwest Minnesota to make similar decisions.
“There’s going to be a lot of people that are just going to leave their bean fields without doing tillage, or maybe even leave their corn fields,” he says. “For us, we’re going to do very little tillage on our bean ground … just to save some money on that fuel side.”
Fertilizer Is Getting Harder To Cut
Fertilizer presents a more difficult cost-cutting decision.
Neither farmer is talking about dramatically reducing fertility rates. The problem is that fertilizer prices remain high, leaving fewer opportunities to trim costs without potentially giving up yield.
“Around here, prices are going to stay (about) the same as last year, and that’s way too high,” Vos says. “But it is what it is. You’ve got to pay it because you’ve got to have a crop.”
Vos says he has already pushed fertility management as far as he is comfortable going.
“Fertilizer is just such a necessity in agriculture, and people that try to skimp out on fertilizer, they often regret it,” he says. “We’re not going to limit how much fertilizer we put out there … We need the crop to live up to its full potential just to make sure we get it to work.”
That leaves farmers looking elsewhere for savings.
For Mueller, fertilizer prices have become more than a farm-management issue. The past president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association has taken his concerns to policymakers.
He attended the Sept. 11 “Fed Up” fertilizer forum in Ogden, Iowa, where Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden met with more than 170 farmers from 13 states.
Mueller says Vaden is examining how input costs and commodity prices have diverged over time.
“He’s got a chart on his desk (that dates) back to the 1970s,” Mueller says. “It shows a divergence starting in the 2010s between the price of grains and the input costs — fertilizer in particular — and there’s no relation between the two, and there hasn’t been for well over a decade.”
Farmers at the meeting also raised concerns about fertilizer pricing, including freight and basis relationships they said no longer appear to fit traditional market structures.
Mueller pointed to an example involving Idaho wheat commissioner Cory Kress, who he says farms next to a phosphate mine.
“His price for phosphate is within $1 of my price for phosphate,” Mueller says. “He’s next door to a phosphate mine, and he’s still paying the same price I am 1,000 miles away.”
Mueller says Vaden appeared familiar with many of the concerns farmers raised. “There’s enough smoke here, there’s got to be a fire,” Mueller quoted Vaden as saying.
Interest Costs Squeeze Land Decisions
Higher borrowing costs add another layer to the margin squeeze, particularly for farmers considering land purchases.
Vos says even seemingly small changes in interest rates can translate into significant dollars when land prices reach five figures per acre.
“A lot of people hear, ‘Oh, it’s just a quarter of a percent. That can’t hurt that much,’” Vos says. “When you’re talking buying land at $12,000 an acre, pretty soon a quarter of a percent adds up really, really fast.”
That pressure can be especially significant for younger farmers and operators carrying substantial debt, he says.
“Most farmers are very, very heavily leveraged,” Vos says. “We’re borrowing a ton of money, so it’s going to affect a lot on how much people are going to be willing to pay on land.”
The complete discussion between Vos, Mueller and Flory can be heard on the AgriTalk Farmer Forum aired on Wednesday, available at the link below:
