January 28, 2026
2026 Nebraska Crop Budgets: Summary and Key Insights
The 2026 Nebraska crop budgets include 84 enterprise budgets, with the addition of a new cover crop budget. As producers and farm managers plan for the upcoming production year, these budgets provide a current, research-based view of projected costs, input assumptions, and expected production economics. As with all forward-looking budget estimates, results depend on assumptions that may change as market conditions evolve.
The 2026 budgets reflect both current market conditions and long-term structural cost trends that producers have faced since 2020. Key changes include increased nutrient costs across most crops; slightly higher pesticide application levels due to greater weed and disease pressure, along with some related product price increases; slightly lower anticipated diesel and gasoline prices; and updated machinery, power unit, implement, and irrigation equipment costs that contribute to higher overall cost-of-production estimates. Because input prices continue to fluctuate significantly due to supply chain conditions and regional market differences, the statewide budgets serve as a baseline rather than a prediction for any single operation.
Farm and ranch financial resilience begins with clarity about what it really costs to produce a crop or livestock enterprise. Updated annually, Nebraska’s crop budgets serve as a planning and decision-support resource for producers, farm managers, lenders, and ag professionals. These enterprise budgets help users evaluate market opportunities using current cost-of-production estimates, compare profitability across crop systems, assess input alternatives and machinery investment decisions, evaluate risk exposure, and determine appropriate risk management strategies. These evaluations also support lender discussions, capital investment planning, and long-term strategic assessments of enterprise mix and land use.
Integration with the Agricultural Budget Calculator (ABC)
The 2026 budgets were developed using the Agricultural Budget Calculator (ABC). The ABC program allows users to import and fully customize the Nebraska crop budgets, making it a flexible tool for adapting statewide assumptions to an individual operation’s conditions—particularly important when machinery, land, labor, or irrigation costs differ from the default inputs.
Understanding projected per-acre investment improves decision-making by informing crop insurance selections tied to expected revenue and cost exposure; supporting evaluation of risk management tools such as hedging, forward contracts, margin protection, and supplemental insurance; and assessing whether the operation can withstand production shocks or market volatility. Enterprise budgets also highlight cost drivers and allow producers to compare relative profitability across enterprises which is critical when allocating land and resources among competing crop options.
Crops and Cost Factors Included in the 2026 Budget Series
Nebraska Extension crop specialists review the Nebraska crop budgets and provide current recommendations on production inputs. Crops included in the 2026 budgets are alfalfa, corn, dry edible beans, grain sorghum, millet, oats, peas, soybeans, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, along with multiple cover crop and forage options.
The 2026 Nebraska crop enterprise budget reports at go.unl.edu/2026crop-budgets provide estimated total economic costs, and the ABC program allows users to toggle between cash and economic cost reports. Economic costs include all cash costs plus the opportunity cost of land and equipment, along with depreciation of machinery and equipment. Understanding cash costs in enterprise budgets provides a view of short-term liquidity exposure, while total economic costs provide a long-term capital recovery outlook.
Land values from the 2025 Nebraska Farm Real Estate Report are used only to calculate land ownership opportunity costs unless replaced with cash rent. If an operator rents crop ground, land value and real estate taxes can be removed and replaced by the amount paid for cash rent; in this scenario, cash costs will increase due to the added rent expense.
In addition to depreciation and ownership costs of machinery and equipment, field operation costs include labor, fuel, and repairs. Repairs and depreciation expenses are calculated using the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) formulas for power units and implements. The 2026 labor rate remained the same as last year’s figure of $27 per hour. Labor costs for each operation are determined using machinery accomplishment rates and are adjusted for the additional time required for machinery preparation, adjustments, and handling of material inputs.
Additional 2026 Nebraska crop enterprise budget details are available at: cap.unl.edu/cropbudgets/about/
Material and service prices for the 2026 crop budgets were based on data collected from August to October 2025. Price assumptions are drawn from regional supplier surveys and publicly available market data, ensuring consistency across crop systems. Because future price movements are uncertain, producers are encouraged to use the Nebraska budgets as a guide and update expense figures as needed to create their own enterprise budgets. While the Nebraska crop budgets rely on assumptions applicable to many producers across the state, each operation is unique. Input prices will vary based on timing of purchase, location, incentives, and quantity discounts.
Many variable costs go into the crop budgets annually, such as fuel, fertilizer, and pesticide costs. Graph 1 shows the prices for diesel fuel per gallon and emphasizes the volatility of nitrogen per pound (lbs. N) prices since 2016. Graph 2 highlights post-2022 corrections but shows persistently elevated price levels of glyphosate with surfactant per gallon over the same time period. Graph 3 identifies input categories that are the primary drivers of year-over-year changes in cost per acre included in dryland corn budget #23 from 2022 to 2026.
Graph 1
Graph 2
Graphs 4 and 5 illustrate the shift in profit margins relative to the cost of production per unit, from 2016 to 2026, for an irrigated corn budget #33 and an irrigated soybean budget #60. The profit margin calculation in these examples uses the crop insurance harvest price for each year compared to the economic cost per unit for each crop. Note: The insurance harvest price for 2026 will not be available until after October 2026 and is therefore not included.
Graph 4
Graph 5
Customizing the Budgets Using ABC
The cost trends shown in the crop budgets over time underscore the importance of tools like the ABC program, which allow producers to adapt statewide assumptions to their own cost structures. Producers can download and modify any Nebraska crop budget using the ABC program agbudget.unl.edu by adjusting equipment lineups and machinery ownership assumptions, irrigation energy and labor requirements, interest and overhead estimates, land costs (ownership or rental), and input quantities, application rates, and prices. This adaptability ensures the budgets reflect the unique financial and agronomic conditions of each operation.
Glennis McClure
Extension Educator / Farm & Ranch Management Analyst
Center for Agricultural Profitability
Department of Agricultural Economics
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
gmcclure3@unl.edu