Nebraska Farmers See Cash Flow Concerns

WOOD RIVER, Neb. (DTN) -- Leaders from the Nebraska Farm Bureau on Wednesday shared their concerns about high input costs and weak commodity prices, though they stopped short of suggesting more farmer aid may be needed.

Meanwhile, Nebraska's governor, fresh off a trade trip to Japan, touted potential biofuel sales to the country.

Farm Bureau held a roundtable at Husker Harvest Days to highlight some of the challenges farmers face while advocating for year-round E15 legislation, more trade deals and livestock expansion to ease some of the pressures on producers.

"As I've been walking around the show here the last day and a half, the thing that keeps popping up -- that people keep asking about or stopping me to talk about -- is just the high input costs," said Mark McHargue, president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau. "I know that on our farm in particular, when I look at the bills and the checks that I write, it's going to be one of the highest per-acre input costs that I'm going to have over my 30-plus years of farming."

Nebraska Farm Bureau economist and policy analyst Abygail Streff noted that since 2020, soybean input costs have climbed 61% per acre, and corn inputs are up 41%. Farm equipment prices have gone up 69% since 2020.

"That's huge. We've never seen that before," Streff said, adding, "That's a huge cost to producers and something that we're feeling, and the farm economy is definitely reflecting that to us."

Bruce Williams, a farmer in eastern Nebraska, added that his operation is feeling the pressure from higher inputs that aren't being offset by crop prices. "We don't have the commodity prices to go with the input prices, so it's creating more pain in the farming environment."

Going into 2026, Williams said cash flow is the biggest issue facing farmers, and that's going to create a ripple effect when it comes to next year's operating loans. "Farmers are feeling it on the cash flow, and that's where they're going to feel it the most, and it's going to affect funding for next year," he said.

Chad Nienhueser, who farms in central Nebraska, said interest rates are becoming a bigger problem, as they have doubled in the last five years. "It's a lot more of a problem in our cash flow situation," Nienhueser said.

Nationally, agricultural loans average about 7.29% this year, Streff noted. "That creates a huge amount of strain, and that's a huge input cost," Streff said. "In general, it's just taking a lot more money to put the same crop in."

TOUTING E15 LEGISLATION

McHargue highlighted the need to grow both domestic and foreign markets. He said one of the quickest "win-win" moves would be for Congress to finally approve year-round E15 nationally. He and others were in Washington, D.C., last week advocating for lawmakers to act.

E15 has continued to sell in the summer through annual waivers approved by EPA, but McHargue said many retailers want a permanent fix before they start putting in blender pumps and the full tanks necessary for 15% ethanol.

"Retailers won't make the investment in tanks unless it's permanent," McHargue said. "If we make it permanent, they'll go ahead and make those investments, and then we can really get that moving."

GOVERNOR HIGHLIGHTS JAPAN MARKET

Coming back from a trade mission this week to Japan, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in a separate talk on Wednesday that Japan is looking to aggressively buy more ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel. Japan is about a 12-billion-gallon gasoline market, and with a 10% ethanol blend, that's about 1.2 billion gallons.

"I think I met with five or six governors in Japan and simply said, 'Look, it's really important that we do business together, that you don't buy ethanol from Brazil because when it really gets down to crunch time, Brazil is not going be there.'"

Pillen said Nebraska biofuel producers are better positioned than biofuel producers in surrounding states to market aviation fuel to Japan going forward as well.

Pillen stressed the need for more value-added agriculture rather than loading corn and soybeans onto rail and barges to export to China.

"We want to process every kernel higher, whether it is through cattle or through ethanol or through sustainable aviation fuel," Pillen said.

Pillen and state Agriculture Director Sherry Vinton also pointed to parts of the Trump administration's trade deal with Japan that spells out $550 billion in investments that Japan is expected to make in the U.S.

Streff highlighted Nebraska's reliance on exports, noting the state shipped $7.9 billion in agricultural goods in 2023, ranking first in beef and hides and third in corn and processed grains.

"We have products the rest of the world needs," she said, pointing to China and Japan as key buyers. But she cautioned that trade disruptions could hit Nebraska harder than surrounding states. "With agriculture being our main economic driver, anything that hurts those markets would obviously affect us."

FARM BILL PRIORITIES

McHargue, a pork producer, also pressed Congress to deal with California's Proposition 12 as lawmakers try to pass several provisions of the farm bill that were not part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. McHargue called Prop 12 a trade barrier between states that limits sales of pork into California.

"It's a barrier that stops Nebraska from fully trading the products we grow here," he said.

Separately, Pillen was also discussing the capital needed to help young people get into agriculture. He said the Farm Service Agency (FSA) needs to increase the limits on farm ownership and operating loans for younger producers. Pillen said he has talked with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about that issue, though those caps are also set in the farm bill.

Also see "Arkansas Farmers Warn of Crisis as Crop Prices Fall; Call for Ad Hoc Aid" here:

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Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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