2026 crop production cost estimates add to Canadian farm challenges

It’s a good thing crop farming takes place on the land, not paper. Because on paper, growing crops in Manitoba will be a bit of a bust this year when it comes to operating a successful business.

The 2026 crop production cost estimates published by Manitoba Agriculture point to“stubbornly high input costs” as a key barrier to profitability.

Marginal returns over total costs, or net profit, are projected to be largely negative from any crops shown in these calculations, provincial farm management specialist Darren Bond said in an online presentation outlining the highlights — or rather lowlights — of the 2026 budgets.

Only one out of 16 commonly grown crops in the province showed a profit for 2026 when provincial number-crunchers put fixed costs such as land, operating costs such as fertilizer and fuel, and labour against average yields and price estimates. And even that one is paltry.

Soybeans, Manitoba’s third-largest crop by acreage, show a profit of $2.11 per acre once fixed and operating costs are considered. Canola, the largest crop by area, ranked fourth at minus-$28.74 per acre. The third-largest crop, hard red spring wheat, ranked seventh with a return of minus-$72.96 per acre.

The numbers improve when you take an estimated $200 per acre fixed costs out of the equation, but that means farmers are simply riding on their equity and not paying themselves. In other words, the farm owns them, not the other way around.

Of course, these numbers aren’t the full story, nor are they to be construed as a forecast. These estimates are based on recent crop prices and costs of inputs such as fertilizer. They’re bound to change for better or worse.

However, they provide farmers with a useful reference point when considering their own costs of production and what strategies they can leverage to beat the odds.

Farmers can’t control the price of seed, pesticides and fertilizer, but they have some control over how much they spend. Many farmers still clean and save seed from the previous cereal crop unless they have signed a contract with a seed supplier restricting the practice. Patents require canola farmers to buy new seed annually. As well, most canola varieties are hybrids and therefore good for only one planting.

Producers can look to reduce herbicide costs by using different crop rotations, seeding rates and spot spraying, but they still must control weeds. Nor can they control how much moisture they get, only how efficiently they use it.

Fertilizer remains one of the highest input costs. This year’s prices are higher by a range of 14 to 18 per cent over last year. Farmers are under constant pressure to manage how efficiently they use crop nutrients, rather than simply cut back on how much they apply and potentially reduce their yields.

When they do use tactics that reduce how much fertilizer gets lost to the environment, such as using delayed-release products, adjusting their application timing and fine-tuning placement, they can achieve the same or better yields for less cost.

In most farmers’ minds, the numbers to beat are the break-even yields in these annual budgets. Based on how they’ve been producing in recent years, they’ve got a good shot at it. Average yields, which means half of the farmers were above, were close to those targets across the board in Manitoba last year.

The national production story is similar. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s December commodity outlook noted Canadian farmers produced their largest crop on record in 2025, surpassing the previous record set in 2020 by seven per cent and the previous five-year-average by 23 per cent. Nearly all crops posted yield gains.

“The primary driver of higher production was improved yields, as the total harvested area remained largely unchanged,” the report said.

Just as it’s a good thing farming isn’t done on paper, it’s even better that the people doing it clearly love a challenge.

Laura Rance is executive editor, production content lead for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com