Farmers Head Into 2026 Facing Uncertain Trade and Crop Prices — but Beef Remains a Bright Spot

By Anna Pope

Producers across the central U.S. are facing high input costs as the trade war puts crop markets in an uncertain position. Agriculture economists say they’re watching tariffs and the cattle industry which has boosted income for some farmers.

Many farmers are entering 2026 in a tight spot.

Crop growers in the Midwest and Great Plains are grappling with low crop prices. Scott Irwin, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign agricultural economist, said there's been a stretch of general losses in corn, soybeans and wheat. Row-crop producers have lost a combined $34.6 billion this year before crop insurance and other support, according to the American Farm Bureau.

As 2026 approaches, Irwin said it’s a belt-tightening period for producers.

“Clearly the number one thing that everyone is mainly concerned is, where are prices going to go in the next year?” Irwin said.

Meanwhile, beef is selling for record-high prices, sparked by the smallest U.S. herd in about 75 years. Cortney Cowley, a senior economist at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, said the challenges for crops and livestock are opposites.

“On the livestock side, we don't have the supply to meet the demand, which is why we have such high prices,” Cowley said. “But on the crop side, we have too much supply and not enough demand where those markets become a lot more important.”

Across the board, producers are paying more for inputs like fertilizer and machinery. And many farmers have lost international customers as the ongoing trade war has disrupted export markets.

A September report from the University of Missouri found that farm income could fall by about $30 billion dollars in 2026 due to lower crop prices and a decline in government payments.

Irwin said many farmers in the Corn Belt have been surviving on a series of ad hoc payment programs from the federal government. Next year, producers are slated to receive billions in funding from disaster relief and economic aid programs – including a $12 billion bailout package announced earlier this month that aims to offset losses from low crop prices and the trade war.

Irwin said those payments could push farmers in Illinois toward a small profit instead of a hefty loss.

But, ad hoc payments only go so far, Cowley said.

“It’s not necessarily going to help the fundamentals of, you know, what do we do with the supply of the products that we grow?” Cowley said. “And what does that mean for prices that farmers are going to be paid on the market?”

New year, same trade questions

Economists say that trade uncertainty will continue to be a challenge as farmers make decisions for their operations this year.

Irwin is watching the U.S. relationship with China, the biggest buyer of U.S. soybeans, and the weather in South America through the first quarter of 2026.

Earlier this year, China boycotted U.S. soybean purchases for months to retaliate against the Trump administration’s tariffs. The country later agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in 2025, and 25 million metric tons for the next three years – which is closer to what the country typically buys from the U.S.