Cropland values in the Plains states rose more than 25 percent over the past year to a record high while ranchland values increased 14 percent, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said in its quarterly survey of 243 banks in the region. It was the fastest rise in cropland values in the survey's history.
Nebraska posted the strongest gains with irrigated and nonirrigated land values rising approximately 40 percent above year-ago levels, the Kansas City Fed said of the Plains states. Oklahoma, mired in one of its worst droughts ever, saw a gain of just over 10 percent, however.
Meanwhile, the price of farmland in the Midwest Corn Belt rose 25 percent in the third quarter, the biggest year-on-year jump in more than three decades, a survey by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank showed.
The top U.S. corn-growing state of Iowa is seeing eye-popping prices, according to land brokers.
Last month, buyers of an 80 acre farm outside Des Moines paid $16,200 an acre for the row crop and pasture land, a staggering amount that surprised veteran land agent and auctioneer Jeffrey Obrecht of Farmers National Co in Iowa.
Ten years ago, farmland in the county was valued at $1,892 an acre, according to an annual Iowa State University survey.
"We had an opening bid of $10,000 an acre, and it kept going up and up and up," Obrecht said. "That was a lot, even for what we're seeing out here."