Soybean acres could surge to decade highs as urea shipments stifled by war

Corn, cotton and rice farmers were already facing an abysmal planting season as commodity prices remain low and continued trade wars have limited international markets. The war with Iran has caused two new problems – a spike in fuel prices and less urea, a popular fertilizer used by producers. 

As shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted by the attacks, less oil and urea is making it through the Persian Gulf, according to numerous published reports. It’s causing historic price spikes and farmers will likely feel the impact. 

One crop that could have a dramatic climb in acres is soybeans. Unlike other crops, soybeans can fix nitrogen themselves, so no urea is required, said Hunter Biram, extension agricultural economist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Biram said the state could have as many as 3.5 million soybean acres, the most since 2017.

“It’s a good idea to revisit the crop enterprise budgets to look at any change in the net revenue margins for crops that require nitrogen fertilizers,” he said. “So maybe you grow more soybeans than you originally thought you’d plant.”

Despite the anticipated surge in soybean acres, the outlook is still bleak for many farmers that will plant them, Biram said. 

“Soybeans appear to be the least bad when it comes to returns,” Biram said. “We are looking at about a negative $5 per acre return on soybeans under a standard crop share agreement — and that’s best-case scenario.”

Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said a colleague joked that Arkansas might have 4 million acres of soybeans this year.

“I laughed, but we may be over 3.5 million acres. That would be a 900,000-acre increase compared to 2025,” Ross said. “And 2.6 million last year was the lowest since 1960. It’s a good thing we don’t need urea for soybean production,” he said. “We will take all the acres we can this year.”

Scott Stiles, extension agricultural economics program associate, said even with the move toward soybeans, “growers are being offered new crop bids above $11 all around the state and growers are already making some marketing decisions on ’26 crop soybeans. The lower input cost and better margins are favoring soybeans this year.”

President Donald Trump has said the war could last for several more weeks. Fuel prices have surged since the attack began on Feb. 28. Its been reported that the national average for a gallon of gas is up 56-cents as of Tuesday (March 10). 

Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said he’s seeing more growers back away from rice.

“I continue to hear rice seed orders being returned,” he said. “The question for me is no longer ‘will we plant at least 1 million acres?’ but instead, ‘just how low will acres fall?’”

“Nitrogen fertilization is directly tied to rice yields,” he said. “Farmers know how much urea it takes to make their yields, so it’s a matter of whether this increasing urea price pushes them out of more acres.

“Given the economic situation, I’m guessing fewer farmers than normal had booked their urea at this point in the year, meaning this price increase will affect more growers — and acres — than usual,” Hardke said. “With rice already penciling out to a negative return in all situations, the red will deepen.”