Despite fuel and production costs increasing, prices charged by third-party farm contractors have stayed flat going into 2026.
Farmers hire third-party operators who provide the machinery and fuel to complete agricultural tasks such as planting or spraying fertilizer. MU Extension then compiles the rates to give farmers and contractors an understanding of how much these services cost, on average.
Drew Kientzy is a project research analyst with the University of Missouri Agriculture Business and Policy Extension. He also co-conducted the survey, and said the costs of the Iran conflict have not been realized in the data.
“With all the extreme things going on around the world, it basically causes extreme volatility, and it's pretty difficult to make any assumptions about what the future holds when we see that kind of volatility,” Kientzy said.
Still, Kientzy said he expects minimal impact to this year’s cost of production, as many farmers have a habit of prepaying for their crop inputs, like fertilizer, chemicals and fuel.
The introduction of the survey highlighted fewer respondents than previous years, speculating fewer farms using these services as a possible reason. Kientzy said this may just be because of the consolidation of farms into larger part-time operations that can maintain specialized equipment.
“It doesn't necessarily make sense for a smaller farm to own that piece of equipment when they're not going to be using it for most of the year, and they certainly couldn't afford some of the technology that some of these custom applicators or larger farms might be able to,” he said.
Farm consolidation comes at a price — farmer bankruptcies spiked by 60% nationwide in year-over-year increases in 2025 according to the 2026 State of the American Farmer report.
Modern Ag Alliance released the report in January, detailing worsening profitability and commodity prices paired with increased production and labor costs as some of the main issues facing farmers. This increase in production can impact other areas of production, like custom farming services, where farms will use third-party professionals to service various agricultural operations.
Paige Schanzmeyer is the assistant manager for Booneville’s MFA Incorporated, a regional supply and marketing cooperative that also provides custom applications statewide.
Schanzmeyer said the increased costs can impact how farmers have to decide whether to cut back expenses or continue with operations as normal.
“We all understand here that some people are going to cut back. It's hard times. I mean, it's not the way it was maybe a year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years ago,” she said.
Schanzmeyer said the Booneville store has not seen any major impacts in custom service rates recently, but farmers are having to adapt to other changes anyway.
"Everybody knows that the cost of living has gone up over these years, but people still have to live. We still have to be able to pay our employees. They have to be able to live off of something, you know," she said. "And same with the farmers, they have to be able to get these services provided to them in order to grow a productive crop."
