Time to pull the handbrake. In November 2025, Ron Robbins placed 8,000 acres of farmland on the scales, spurred by two successive years of financial strain. He dropped grading categories atop his corn and soybean acres for a tale-of-the-tape judgement. Keep, improve, or cull.
“Call it a crossroads or breaking point, but traditional row crop farms are in serious trouble, and I believe the agriculture industry has gotten complacent,” Robbins says. “If you don’t step back now and take a detailed look at your acres, it could be a terribly costly mistake that I might call blind ambition.”
Nailing Numbers
In 2025, Robbins’ end-of-year crop inventory value was $1.3 million less than his end-of-year value in 2023. “We had good yields and good prices in 2023. We had decent yields and horrible prices in 2024. We had terribly challenging weather, horrible yields, and horrible prices in 2025.”
“The crop math is extremely difficult, and then who’s to say things will get better, stay the same, or get worse? After this past season in 2025, I wasn’t going to put my head in the sand and hope. It was time for a hard look at each farm, each field, our process, and how we can improve going into 2026 and beyond.”
A skip from the east end of Lake Ontario, Robbins Grain & North Dairy Harbor is tucked in the relative flats of the Lake Plain region in Jefferson County, New York. The overall operation includes 1,600 dairy cows, trucking, ag tourism, and 8,000 acres of corn silage, corn grain, soybeans, wheat, and hay.
Scattered across a 20-mile radius from his main headquarters, Robbins’ field sizes are small, averaging 40-50 acres, and soil diversity is extremely diverse, ranging from well-drained loamy limestone to heavy clay. Despite diminutive size, it’s not unusual for a single field to contain four distinct soil types—contributing to a complicated management dance.
“We’ve got feed hitting blacktop. We’ve got manure hitting blacktop. We’ve got labor hitting blacktop. It’s expensive, period, and the tiniest factors are big deals,” says Robbins. “Spread manure; plant crops; and harvest hay, all at the same time. You better have the numbers nailed down.”
As he speaks, in January 2026, unharvested 2025 corn remains in many New York State fields. “Because of very late planting last spring and a very dry summer, there’s 15-20% of grain corn acres still standing that basically never fully matured”. It speaks to the crucial need to be timely at planting. Just one more reason we’ve implemented a grading scale. Fortunately, ours was all harvested timely.”
Time to call balls and strikes.
Adios to Guesswork
In November 2025, Robbins and his team gathered around an HQ table and shared a nine-course meal of farm data.
He placed acreage into four five-year-average planting date categories, alongside five-year-average yields: early, mid-early, mid-late and late. “We began considering each piece based on fertility, distance, and whether issues could be fixed with tile, lime, manure, or something else.”
First, Robbins noted 1,000 acres of top-drawer, highest-yielding ground—the earliest fields planted year-in and year-out, regardless of weather, between April 25 to May 5.
Second, he tagged 1,500 mid-early acres—accessible for planting and manure spreading in most years, May 5 to May 15.
Third, he identified 1,500 mid-late corn and soybean acres that generally are planted between May 15 and May 25, along with 1,500 acres of hay ground that must be harvested for hay silage in this same time frame.
Fourth, the late bunch, i.e., all acres planted after May 25, typically poorly-drained and the furthest away from the main farm. “These are acres we will focus on for improvements where possible, and if not possible, we’ll seed them to a grass hay crop for heifer forage or consider dropping the land.”
The result?
He’ll fallow 400 acres in 2026, designating it for improvements, including pushing back brush rows and tree lines, tile drainage, ditch cleaning, heavy manure applications, and planting fall ryegrass or wheat or triticale.
Additionally, of approximately 4,700 total corn and soybean acres, he’ll shift 500 (heavy clay soil) from soybeans to corn. “We are trying to figure out why our heavy clay soils struggle to produce decent soybean yields, but seem to produce strong corn yields each year.”
“We now have a plan in place and we can match corn variety to acres better than ever. I don’t want my employees guessing about anything. We’ve got seed varieties designated for each category. For example, it’ll be 98-day to 102-day corn in the early category. If we get to May 5 and those acres aren’t planted, we move 94-day to 98-day corn. Again, no guessing.”
“Putting our acreage in these classifications is our first move, and we’ll make tighter adjustments as we go along,” Robbins continues. “One thing we won’t do is increase our acres because we’re maxed out. Maybe there’s nothing worse than taking on land you can’t manage properly. However, we now have a concrete framework to justify cutting acres if needed. It’s preparation regardless of what happens next year.”
(For more on producers considering acreage cuts, see: Farmland Shock: Georgia Grower Drops 3,000 Acres, Warns of Unplanted Ground in 2026)
“We’re categorizing acres according to data,” Robbins adds. “All farms have tons of data, and so much of it goes unused, but right now row crop profitability is beyond tough, and we’re done with leaving our data untouched. The details are what matter. Who’s to say this downturn in the row crop economy won’t continue?”
Translated: Robbins is acting now in case the row crop rut becomes agriculture’s new normal.
Through a Glass Darkly
Good, bad, and ugly, fourth-generation Robbins doesn’t mince words.
“I’m very worried about the future of row crop agriculture, particularly out in the Midwest. For guys married to corn and soybeans, without diversity otherwise, that means all your eggs are in one basket. For the past several decades, the blueprint on many of those operations has been a focus on growth and getting bigger, but that may have meant losing sight of the true picture. Bigger is only better if timeliness and profitability make sense.”
“Growth should mean a lot of things besides buying equipment or adding land,” Robbins notes. “It should equally mean adding a side business, increasing efficiency, improving profitability and, maybe most importantly, learning from mistakes by keeping your head up and looking at what’s coming or how things are changing.”
“Personally, I believe row crops are at a fork in the road,” Robbins concludes. “Every single farmer out there has a different management situation on their land, but my encouragement is to step back, take a hard look, analyze your acres in a systematic way like you’ve never done before, and determine what is best for long-term profitability, no matter how difficult the choices. Assume nothing, because the future of farming is very tough to see right now.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Farmland Shock: Georgia Grower Drops 3,000 Acres, Warns of Unplanted Ground in 2026
Sticky Fingers: USDA Fraudster Steals $200M in Stunning Scam
Government Threatens Seizure of 85-Year-Old’s Entire Farm for Irrigating Wrong Field
Frontier Justice: Cowboy Posse Corners Deer Poacher in Buck-Wild Bust
Water Witch Keeps Dowsing Tradition Alive on Nebraska Farmland
Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business
County Shuts Down 15-Yr-Old’s Bait Stand on Family Farm, Threatens Daily Fines
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
