In a year when U.S. farmers might wonder if they should finally blink on corn, Scott Irwin is predicting many won’t. The University of Illinois agricultural economist believes growers will lean into growing corn once again.
“I think my overall bottom line is we’re probably going to end up with more corn acres than we were thinking a few months ago,” he says.
That will likely be the case, he notes, even though the 2026 soybean-to-corn price ratio slightly favors soybeans and enterprise crop budgets indicate soybeans will be more profitable than corn.
He offers two reasons why corn acres will likely rule again this season. For one, farmers “just prefer” growing corn over soybeans. Second, and a greater factor, are recent bridge program payments, which are likely to shape farmer behavior.
“Recent bridge program payments basically have backfilled a lot of corn losses, and there’s a lot of expectation that a third round will be coming,” Irwin says.
That perspective is shared by Ben Brown, an economist with FAPRI (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute).
“Some of the per acre planted rates that we’ve seen with ECAP and now the farmer bridge assistance payments, those are tied to planted acres and corn’s had the higher payment rate relative to soybeans and some of the other competing crops as well,” Brown reports. “I also look at some of the changes on the crop insurance side, the increased subsidy rates up to 80% for the supplemental coverage option, the enhanced coverage option.”
Those backstops matter, Brown adds, because they support farmers’ willingness to stick with a crop that might feel a bit risky on a cash-flow basis.
Will Farmers Plant 100 Million Acres Of Corn In 2026?
In 2025, growers’ preference for corn showed up in a dramatic way with U.S. farmers planting 98.8 million acres, based on USDA’s Crop Production 2025 Summary released in January 2026.
“That number is still kind of hard to fathom,” Irwin says. “And if you add prevented plant acreage, you get over 100 [million] corn acres.”
While he doesn’t expect a repeat of that staggering figure, he doesn’t foresee a huge drop in the final planted acreage number, either.
“I think we’re going to plant at least 95– to 96-million acres of corn,” he says.
In addition, he anticipates soybeans will “be up from a really low level,” the 81.2 million acres farmers planted last year.
“I could see soybeans going up a couple million acres, and corn coming down a couple million, but that’s still going to leave a lot more corn acres for 2026,” he predicts.
Few To No New Crop Production Opportunities
For Midwest row-crop growers looking for alternatives beyond corn and soybeans, Irwin doesn’t see any practical large-scale opportunities, especially in Midwest states like Illinois.
“There’s really not any large-scale move here in Illinois, for example. There could be some marginal increase in wheat–soybean double-cropping if the economic returns were positive, but wheat prices are in the tank, too,” Irwin says.
“So there really isn’t any good option other than basically to continue what you’ve been doing, and try to cut costs as much as you can and hope for more bridge payment programs,” he adds.
Corn Yield Trend Line Is Moving Higher
On a more positive note, Irwin says 2025’s crop performance should put to rest the idea that U.S. corn trend yields have stalled.
“A lot of people argued that we weren’t going to go above a 180-bushel average for a long time. Well, we just blew through that, didn’t we, with the 186.5 bushels in 2025.”
Looking ahead, he pegs the 2026 corn yield trend in a similar range.
“You’re looking at a trend yield projection for 2026 probably around 185 or 186 bushels. It won’t be long before we’ll have actual yields well above 190 for the U.S. That’s coming,” he says. “Corn yield just keeps chugging along, adding about 2 bushels a year to yields on average.”
Irwin’s message overall is that the acreage mix probably won’t be radically rearranged this season. Corn will still dominate the map, while soybeans will rebuild modestly.
The real battle ahead, he adds, may be less about what gets planted—and more about how farmers get profitable in a market trying to absorb another big crop.