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Cash flow concerns mount for crop farmers heading into 2026

An extension economist says 2025 has been a tough year for crop farmers. 

Paul Mitchell with the University of Wisconsin tells Brownfield the 2024 crop did not generate a lot of income and did not trigger many ARC and PLC payments, and the 2025 crop prices are lower.  “This crop, it won’t generate commodity support payments from the Farm Bill or the One Big Beautiful Bill until this time next year, so there’s definitely a big cash flow crunch for a lot of farmers.”

He says the returns per acre and returns per bushel are just not very good, and that’s why there has been a push for some kind of farmer aid program from the federal government. 

Mitchell says he’s not expecting a lot of purchasing activity immediately after harvest.  “My guess is they’re going to be a little slow to buy inputs, big inputs for their 2026 crop until they really get a better sense of what’s going on because they’ve got to pay off their 2025 operating loans, they’ve got to figure out what’s going on with what they want to do in the 2026 year, so there’s a lot going on yet.”

Mitchell says there’s still a lot of time before farmers must decide on their 2026 cropping plan, and so far, farmers have been busy with harvesting and not asking extension agents for advice.