By Ryan Hanrahan
Bloomberg’s Kim Chipman reported late last week that “President Donald Trump’s slew of tariffs means American farmers may not make that big shift to corn after all. Growers were widely expected to plant the most corn in five years due to tighter supplies. Now levies on some products from Canada, Mexico and China have shifted a key market indicator in favor of soybeans.”
“Corn prices, which had surged earlier this year, erased almost all of 2025’s gain as tariffs threatened to lock growers out of key export markets, leaving bins bursting,” Chipman reported. “Tariffs have also made fertilizers more expensive, and farmers need more inputs to raise corn than soybeans.”
“‘This week took some of that glitter off corn and put it on soybeans,’ said Iowa producer Benjamin Riensche, who is now considering scrapping his idea of seeding more corn and fewer soybeans than usual this year,” Chipman reported. “The so-called corn-to-soy ratio, a key indicator of what farmers will plant in the spring, is currently at about 2.2. That’s up from this year’s low of 2.04 on Feb. 19. A ratio of more than 2.5 usually means farmers will favor soybeans over corn, the largest of US crops.“
Big Corn Acreage Increase Has Been Predicted
Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported at the end of February that “USDA estimates farmers will plant 94 million acres of corn, up 3.4 million acres from 2024-25, while soybean planted acres are forecast at 84 million, down 3.1 million.”
“USDA pegs (corn) production at 15.585 bb, up 718 million bushels (mb), with a yield estimate of 181 bushels per acre (bpa). If the numbers hold, both production and yield would be records,” Clayton reported. “USDA estimates farmers will plant 84 million acres of soybeans, down 3.1 million acres, but yield would rise to 52.5 bpa, up 1.8 bpa. That puts production at 4.37 bb, up 4 mb from 4.366 bb for 2024-25.”
Before the USDA’s numbers were released, Reuters’ Karen Braun reported that “analysts on average pegged 2025 U.S. corn plantings at 93.6 million acres and soybeans at 84.4 million acres, up 3.3% and down 3% on the year, respectively.”
“Analysts’ corn estimates span 3 million acres with a high of 95 million, and the soybean ones cover 3.4 million acres with a high of 86.5 million. Both ranges are the largest for late February in three years, but considerably smaller than in other recent years like 2019 or 2020,” Braun reported.
Fertilizer Prices Could Play Biggest Role in Lack of Acreage Shift
Reuters’ Ed White reported that “with only weeks until spring planting on both sides of the border gets underway, Canadian and U.S. farmers, already facing low grain prices, are bracing for another economic blow: even bigger fertilizer bills amid a North American trade war.”
“Fertilizer is most farmers’ biggest input cost. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 22% of total corn production costs come from fertilizer, and that includes labor, machinery and overhead expenses,” White reported. “The price of potash has risen from $303 per short ton on January 3 to $348 on February 28 ahead of the tariffs.”
“After threatening tariffs for months, U.S. President Donald Trump enacted 25% duties on most Canadian products on Tuesday before announcing a one-month reprieve on some goods, including fertilizers, on Thursday,” White reported. “Canada said on Thursday it will delay a planned second wave of retaliatory tariffs until April 2.”
“One fertilizer company executive warned U.S. farmers should be prepared for fertilizer prices to jump as much as 25%,” White reported. “”We believe that the cost of tariffs will be passed on to the U.S. farmer,” Ken Seitz, the president and CEO of Nutrien said at the BMO Global Metals, Mining and Critical Minerals Conference on February 25.”
Chipman reported that “while market signals still favor more corn plantings this spring than soybeans, lower corn futures are causing some growers to reevaluate. ‘It’s hard to know what to do right now,’ said Ryan Frieders, an Illinois farmer who sits on the board of the American Soybean Association.”
Source : illinois.edu