Wisconsin Farmers Hold Grain as Low Prices Squeeze Margins

By Blake Jackson

Under a blanket of snow in western Wisconsin, farmer are holding on to a full grain crop this winter, with his bins filled and additional storage rented from a nearby farm. Farmers, who has grown corn and soybeans for nearly four decades, the decision reflects a year unlike most others.

“It looked like the thing to do was going to be to sit on your bushels,” farmer Craig Myhre said.

Throughout the summer, soybean prices stayed below his cost of production, discouraging him from locking in prices through forward contracts. By harvest, waiting until spring to sell offered his best chance at turning a profit. That strategy, however, meant missing the usual post-harvest cash flow used to pay bills and purchase seed and fertilizer.

“Normally, I’ve sold all my beans in the fall, quite a bit of the corn,” Myhre said. “This is new territory for me. And so that’s why I’m trying to figure out how to juggle all this.”

Myhre’s experience mirrors broader challenges facing farmers across the central U.S. in 2025. Producers dealt with tight margins, rising input costs, shifting global trade conditions, and changes within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Soybean prices have remained depressed since late 2023, while expenses for fuel, repairs, and supplies continued climbing.

“You’re trying to figure out where you can trim costs, but it’s just tough,” Myhre said. “Parts, repair bills, fuel. It’s hard to get away from the bills, because it’s stuff you’ve got to have.”

Adding to the pressure, renewed tariffs on China and other trading partners introduced further volatility. Paul Mitchell, an agricultural and applied economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said frequent policy changes created major uncertainty.

“All that farmers heard was uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty, in the midst of this troubled economic outlook,” Mitchell said.

Traditional USDA safety-net programs offered limited relief, with payment rates still based on 2018 levels and payments delayed by a federal government shutdown. While one-time aid programs helped offset losses, Mitchell noted the lack of predictability.

“Nothing worked the way it’s supposed to,” he said. “Ad hoc programs (are worth) billions of dollars, but nothing you can plan on.”

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