Some farmers cut back on corn. Input prices, timing, storage capacity, market play roles

By Max Kappel
Report for America

IMLAY CITY — Looking over his budget early this year, Imlay City farmer Ken Penzien was faced with a decision.

On his 1,000 acres, he usually grows corn, soybeans, and wheat on rotation, with a good mix of vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes that he sells at local markets. Pencilling out his costs this year, though, the math pushed him to change: he shouldn’t grow any corn.

If he produced 200 bushels of corn per acre, a combination of mounting seed costs, fertilizer, potash, and herbicide would chop his profits down towards breakeven. And that’s not even accounting for weather or other unpredictable issues, he said.

“It just hit me,” said Penzien. “‘You’d be a fool! Don’t plant any corn. If I wanted to lose money, I would’ve just gone to Las Vegas — I might get lucky there.”

Instead, he planted more soybeans, which requires a smaller investment in fertilizer and, although its selling prices remain low, presented an easier path ahead.

Penzien wasn’t alone in his decision. Local planted corn acreage didn’t drop dramatically, but recently released U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed a five-year acreage low for yellow corn in Sanilac County.

Lapeer County planted comparable acreage to the past two years, but still notably lower than higher growing years earlier this decade. St. Clair County acreage sat firmly between totals of the past two years and those same higher acreage years. Thanks mostly to Sanilac’s and Lapeer’s tallies, the three-county total is its lowest since 2021. 

The choice farmers made with regards to corn depended on a few key factors. Not everyone opted to cut back, stemming from their locked-in input prices, set crop rotations, or on-farm grain storage. 

The grander market and demand for each crop, of course, plays a significant role in pricing and, by extension, decisions to plant or not plant.

Inputs and timing

Fremont farmer Dennis Gardner, who farms 2,400 acres in total, said he, too, cut back on corn this year. 

Citing high costs for inputs such as fertilizer, fuel, and equipment repairs, he decided to plant 100 fewer acres of corn this season, totalling 200.

His situation presents an important factor in the decisionmaking process.

Farmers can sign fuel contracts in which they agree to purchase a set amount of fuel from a provider at an agreed price. That guaranteed price can insulate growers from volatile markets.

“I normally have my fuel contract, and I didn’t contract as far out as I thought. So it kind of screwed me a little bit,” said Gardner. 

For fertilizer, too, 2026 has been a drag for prices. The U.S.-Iran conflict played a huge role, with products or raw materials for their production blocked in the Strait of Hormuz.

Tyler Eldridge, a grain merchandiser at Michigan Agricultural Commodities Inc. in Brown City, told The Expositor he was quoting prices for nitrogen, a key component in fertilizer, by nearly double after the aforementioned conflict kicked off. 

That kind of a price jump can push farmers down a different direction, while others could be unaffected if they’d locked into lower prices beforehand.

Keeping an eye on profitability is something Jeff Furness, another Fremont farmer with about 2,300 acres, emphasized about his operation in an August interview. 

“We’re quite often working ahead, trying to find the seasonal low for those inputs,” he said. At this time, he’s pricing fertilizer that’ll be used for next year’s crop. 

Pre-purchasing inputs, while a way to shelter from volatility, requires a strong financial base. That’s something not every farmer, especially those without sprawling acreage, can tap in to. 

“Bigger farmers with a little bit more cash flow, they’ll purchase all their inputs early. Usually it’s at some kind of a discount. So then they can grow more, more corn acres or whatever,” said Eldridge.  “Whereas if you have a guy that’s a little smaller, or doesn’t have as many acres, he’s kind of a price-taker.”

Storage and commodities

Corn prices have been cheap for the past handful of years. 

For some, low futures prices, meaning prices for fall deliveries that were shared before spring, can play a role in cutting back.

High yields nationwide in the early 2020s pushed prices down, and heading into 2026, the country was holding on to nearly 2.1 billion bushels of corn.

“With that much carry out, the whole market itself didn’t need [a] big influx of corn,” said Eldridge.

Amidst low prices, some farmers can play the long game to wait for a market shift, assuming they have adequate storage for their crops. That’s not a given for every farmer in Sanilac, St. Clair, and Lapeer counties.

— Max Kappel is a reporter covering local government and agriculture for The Yale Expositor and is a Report for America corps member. Report for America recruits, places and supports talented journalists in local newsrooms across the United States. Make a tax-deductible donation to support his work and Report for America will match it dollar for dollar. Go to: tinyurl.com/2s372ebu.