So you've had six meetings and everything is hunky-dory in the ag sector?
Yes, some farmers can buy early (to lock in prices), particularly the larger or better-capitalized operations. But in 2025-2026, many farmers are financially constrained and cautious. The profits farmers made when crop prices were high a few years ago have eroded and balance sheets are tight.
More and more farmers aren’t just asking “Should I buy early?”
They’re asking “Can I afford to?”
Strawman alert. No one said it was all hunky dory.
Someone posted an article interviewing some guy who is doing things very differently than what successful farmers typically do and getting burned in the process.
The last two years some people waited to buy and were able to get some last minute deals. This year it backfired on them because they failed to hedge their cost risk. Probably didn’t buy fuel either when it was at a multi year low all winter.
“Can I afford to?”
He can’t afford to buy late even more than he couldn’t afford to buy early.
He has four choices really at this point:
1. He buys the fertilizer at what it costs now and continues to farm this year as normal. He’ll probably lose money again this year unless crop prices rally to offset the additional cost.
2. He doesn’t buy it and maybe he’s hoping he applied enough in the past that there’s enough in the soil fertility bank that he has decent yields and he lives to have a better strategy for securing inputs next year. Or maybe it’s a colossal failure and he goes broke.
3. He reduces his inputs strategically which would lower his cost and still give himself a shot at a normal yield. This is pretty common the last couple of years but you still want to have a better strategy than waiting til the last minute hoping you’ll get lucky buying one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle.
4. He quits farming and the neighbor down the road who is a better businessman takes it over and hires him to run the seed tender.
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