Iowa farmland values surge; up 2/3 since 2003

Farmland values in Iowa keep rising, at an accelerating rate: 18 percent in the last year and 11 percent in the last six months, reports Agriculture Online.

The figures come from the latest survey conducted by the Iowa Farm and Land Chapter #2 of the Realtors Land Institute. "The survey polls farmland value specialists and real estate agents for their estimates of 'bare, unimproved land,' says Troy Louwagie, RLI Land Trends and Values committee chairman and Hertz Land Management agent in Nevada, Iowa," Ag Online reports.

Since 2003, land prices in Iowa have increased by two-thirds, thanks to the surge in corn and soybean prices cause by demand for ethanol and biodiesel. "The highest average farmland value in the state came in west-central Iowa, where high quality crop ground fetched an average of $5,630 per acre," Ag Online reports. "Southwestern Iowa saw the largest value climb in the last six months; land values there rose by 14 percent since September of last year." (Read more)