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2027 crop profitability outlook brightens, but belts expected to remain tight

A pair of agricultural economists with the University of Illinois say they expect most farmers to continue to face tight margins in the 2027 crop.

During a recent FarmDoc webinar, Gary Schnitkey says market prices for both corn and soybeans have improved over the past month and project positively.

“If you go back to that February period, our projected corn price was $4.62.”  He says, “As of yesterday (September 1^st), we were trading at $5.30.”

However, Nick Paulson says input costs, especially fertilizer and fuel, continue to rise.

“Those are the two big moves in terms of percentages and dollars per acre, particularly on fertilizers, but just continued cost increases across the board.”  He says, “We don’t see any costs really coming down.”

He says that’s causing break-even prices to continually creep higher as well.

“The last few years it’s been which crop is projected to have the smaller loss.”  He says, “Here it’s which crop’s going to have the moderately positive return versus the low positive return and it continues to be soybeans.”

Schnitkey says projected break-even prices of around $5 per bushel for corn and $11 per bushel for soybeans mean producers should continue to preserve cash flow, maximize returns not yields, and carefully evaluate capital purchases.