Citing near-record production costs in a low-price environment, the National Corn Growers Association recently launched a task force to identify solutions to bring costs more in line with today’s commodity prices. Corn growers nationwide are in the third consecutive year of net negative returns, with 2026 projected to be the fourth year of negative returns.
“Corn growers have been sounding the alarm for a while that on-farm economics are not working,” said Kenneth Hartman Jr., Illinois farmer and NCGA president. “This is a time to look at all pieces of the farm profitability picture. Low prices of course contribute to one side of the equation, but we must also look at the extremely high prices growers are paying for essential inputs on the other side.”
Recent analysis from NCGA economists show that input prices remain at near-record highs despite the precipitous drop in per bushel corn prices in the last three years. Average production costs have dropped just three percent from their peak in 2022 to 2025 while corn prices have declined by over 50 percent over the same period. Even with higher yields, farmers are unlikely to be able to offset these high costs.
The input task force is led by Matt Frostic, a corn farmer from Michigan and incoming first vice president for NCGA, and is composed of corn farmers, NCGA and state corn organization staff.
The creation of the task force is the latest in a series of actions taken by NCGA over the last several years to address input costs. Last month, NCGA, along with state corn grower associations, sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials to draw attention to the ongoing financial challenges facing growers, in part due to high input costs. In recent years, the organization has also pushed back on tariffs on imported fertilizer that contributed to record-high fertilizer costs.
