News

“Parking equipment”: Minnesota Ag Commissioner says farmers are sitting out 2026

Minnesota’s commissioner of agriculture tells Brownfield some farmers are sitting out the 2026 crop year.

Thom Petersen says negative margins are resulting in growers going idle.

“Maybe some of those smaller grain farmers, if they have somebody willing to pay a couple hundred dollars an acre to rent their land and run it rather losing a hundred bucks an acre. Which is kind of what some of the penciling still projects to be with everything.”

Petersen says he can’t think of another year where that has happened.

“In Minnesota we have 12 farm advocates, and I met with the farm advocates yesterday. In fact, one of them is a farmer and I asked them about that. And he said ‘actually I’m doing that this year, I’m parking my equipment.”

Petersen says the conflict in the Middle East could not have come at a worse time for farmers and more federal financial assistance is probably necessary.

When asked by Brownfield if there is an estimate of how many farmers might be renting out their land this year but plan to farm it again next year, the Department of Agriculture said there’s no reporting mechanism other than USDA National Ag Statistics Service surveys, so estimates would be anecdotal at best.