Georgia Grower Cuts Nearly Half His Acres, Warns of Bare Fields in 2026
Responding to crippling input costs, Alex Harrell slashes his cropland in half and predicts significant U.S. acres may be bare come spring.
In November 2025, Harrell ran an old-school A-to-F grading system across his 6,000-acre operation and dropped almost half his ground, notifying 12 landlords in three weeks. “I can’t speak to the rest of the country, but around here, generational growers are either cutting back, quitting, falling into Chapter 12, or grasping at straws.”
Harrell says the acreage cut is a red flag for an agriculture economy under severe stress. “There will be significant acres in my area that won’t be planted next year,” he says.
He sums up the squeeze plainly: “Something has to give when you go three years and more just spinning your wheels on net profit.” The math, he explains, is brutal when fertilizer, chemical, and machinery costs spike 300% while commodity prices sag.
In 2025 Harrell grew corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat across southwest Georgia’s Lee County on that 6,000-acre footprint. Breaking even is now rare; instead, many farmers are literally paying to farm rather than getting paid to farm, he says.
When Harrell graded each lease last November, he judged seven practical factors before deciding what to drop. He axed parcels that failed more than two categories and wound up reducing his crop acres by 45%.
- How many miles away was the land?
- How productive is the soil?
- What was the water source (pond, creek, or well)?
- How was irrigation powered (electric or diesel)?
- On base acres, how productive was the farm related to PLC and ARC?
- How did wildlife depredation factor for deer and wild pigs (and whether landowners allowed for shooting with deer permits)?
- How much was rent?
For Harrell, the numbers forced decisions even on long-held ground. “It was time to turn them loose. Like I said, that’s how bad the farm economy is around here. In some ways, I think the worst part is still to come, but people don’t realize that yet.”
Rent for irrigated ground in his region typically runs $275–$330 per acre, and landlords reacted predictably to the cuts. “I had one that offered to drop rent a little bit, but I understand because they’re used to having 10 guys sitting there waiting to rent that land,” Harrell says.
He believes the market dynamic has changed: “This time, people are not going to be beating their doors down.” There may still be interest in good acres, but the bidding wars of the past are gone, he warns.
Harrell has tightened his operational radius to save on fuel, labor, time, and insurance, cutting the furthest farm from 21 miles out to roughly 10 miles. “When you look at fuel, labor, time, and insurance involved in running up and down the road, that kills you whenever you put a tractor on a highway.”
Going broader used to be the answer: spread fixed costs, drive down input per acre, make efficiency through scale. “Not anymore,” he says. In the Southeast, spreading too far often means forfeiting yield because irrigation, pest control, and timely sprays all demand close attention.
He contrasts region types plainly: “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say a 15,000-acre operation in the Midwest compares to a 5,000-acre in the Southeast as far as demand on a farmer.” That distinction shapes what scale actually buys in different geographies.
Harrell’s on-farm achievements are real — he set soybean yield records in consecutive years — and that agronomic skill makes the financial pain even clearer. “We can grow most any variety of crop in the world right here, but we’re at the point of seeing what happens when none of them will turn a profit due to the crazy input prices.
We’ve now got guys with all their land and equity burned up, and we’re seeing Chapter 12 bankruptcies every day. Guys are quitting and walking away, and that eventually leads to land that doesn’t get picked up.
That’s how terrible things have gotten, even if some people don’t see it yet. Cropland with no crop.”