Fears of $15 billion loss for corn farmers
Nov 26,2025
The American Farm Bureau is sounding the alarm about Midwest farmers’ financial strain. A recent podcast noted “As the Chinese backed out of the market, that put further pressure on prices. As farmers were harvesting a crop, many of them didn’t have storage and had to sell at harvest-time lows. So even though we’ve got a framework in place, and the Chinese are starting to buy product, for a lot of growers, the economic benefits of these frameworks may come too late.”
In general low crop prices and higher input costs are bleeding red ink in the US ag sector.
But now farmers switched to corn expected to build a surplus that will lead to huge new losses.
That is happening since China typically buys close to half of the soybeans grown in the U.S. But the ongoing trade war means farmers in the Midwest must consider other options — and none are as profitable.
“Due largely to the Chinese falling short of their Phase 1 soybean commitments, and more recent trade uncertainty, farmers across the Corn Belt pulled back on soybean acres and instead planted nearly 100 million acres of corn.
At an average total cost (including fixed and variable operating costs) of putting the crop in the ground of approximately $900 an acre, corn farmers committed nearly $90 billion to sow a crop this spring. Now, even with an expected record yield of 186 bushels per acre and a $4 per bushel national average price, the return over total cost is estimated at a loss of over $150 per acre, with total losses nationwide eclipsing $15 billion.” That is just corn.