American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers

Farmland Value Check: Midwest Class A Ground Sees Pullback, Water Security Redefines California’s Market

Mon, 04 May 2026 03:08:16 GMT

New data assembled by Realtors Land Institute (RLI), the National Association of Realtors Research Group and Acres, highlights fundamental trends driving the land market today. But this year’s Land Market Survey, which was augmented by research conducted by Acres, unveils two trends in farmland regarding quality and productivity ratings as well as other trends important in the business management of farmland.

First, Overall Land Trends

In addressing widespread concerns about a potential U.S. recession, Dr. Lawrence Yun Chief Economist and SVP of Research, National Association of Realtors emphasized that, despite recent oil price shocks and persistently low consumer sentiment, the U.S. economy is not on the brink of recession.

The survey details multiple industries and sectors in land use and values, and for 2025, In terms of price growth, the ranch category led with a 2.2% increase in dollars per acre, outperforming other land types. Industrial and recreational land also saw solid gains of 1.9% each, while other categories experienced moderate increases. Notably, Commercial Real Estate Data Analyst, Oleh Sorokin anticipates that while land sales will strengthen in 2026, the pace of price growth is expected to slow, with projected increases in the ranch category dropping to 0.9% per acre.

How Are Farmland Values Performing Differently?

The presenters highlight the energy price correlation as Farmland values and operational balance sheets are heavily tied to energy prices, as oil and gas drive both fuel costs and fertilizer prices.

“Tariffs are one that it’s kind of dwarfed now by the energy situation, but tariffs were a pretty big impact last year,” says Aaron Shew, chief technology officer at Acres.

With fuel input prices and fertilizer input prices highly driven by energy prices, those effects are being monitored closely both in terms of price hikes but also duration of elevated prices.

He continues, “Some of the energy challenges that we’re undergoing with the war in Iran and the blockade, Straits of Hormuz, I think that has the potential, maybe less in the broader real estate market, but for farmland specifically, that could have a pretty large impact, depending on how it resolves, how quickly that happens.”

What Are The High Interest Trends?

Shew’s research reveals two eye-catching farmland value takeaways.

1. Midwest Market “Pullback": Class A farmland in the Midwest is seeing a “mature” pullback of about 10% from the 2021–2022 peaks, while Class B ground remains slightly more resilient.

(Acres.com)

First Shew notes, 2021 and 2022 saw 1.5x to 2x the average number of land transactions. The highest value per acres sales during that time earned a lot of attention. What he refers to as “hype.”

“Particularly in Iowa and Illinois, where farmers were buying farms for $25,000 or $30,000 per acre. you have these outlier transactions. It’s very, very few, but they catch a lot of attention and that kind of pushes some land values up.”

He says that raised expectations that Class A—or the highest rated productivity ground—had reached a new plateau in values and wouldn’t go down.

But Shew notes, as of 2025, there’s been a 10% pullback from those ’21 and ’22 peaks. And that’s on the highest rated ground in terms of productivity.

Class B ground values have been more resilient.

2. In California, Water is Half Your Land’s Value

Looking at the data, Shew says in California, water security drives the value, particularly for permanent crops. Tier 1 districts with multiple water sources maintain high values, while “white space” (areas without district water) is seeing significant distress and land fallowing.

“A lot of people are already talking about water regulations, how water security plays a role, and, permanent crops have been under duress for close to three years now,” Shew says. “So that’s not new, but we’ve quantified the impacts regionally, and across ag districts, and by permanent crop type.”

The crops showing this trend in spades: almonds and pistachios.

“For Tier 1 districts, for almonds, you’re looking at $30,000 plus an acre. And then you go to Tier 2 districts, and you’ll see it around a little over $20,000 an acre. Outside of districts, it’s called white space and you’re actually at $13,000 per acre, which is almond ground being sold as bare ground—rip and replace.”

(Acres.com)

He says Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) will mean that 500,000 to 750,000 acres of irrigated farmland will have to be fallowed or pulled out by 2040.

“So that’s about 10% of the farmland in California’s Central Valley, most of it in San Joaquin,” so we’re seeing some initial phases of that as we’ve seen tens of thousands of permanent crops come out in the past few years,” Shew says.

He adds, “Water regulatory bodies have put more pressure on farming in California. It’s just going to create a harsher environment for how water gets distributed and allocated.”

Resilience via Government Assistance

Programs such as the Farmers Bridge Assistance are preventing forced land sales by supporting farm operations, which keeps land values stable despite two years of challenging economics. He says we are reaching the tipping point in year three.

“Farm operations can be poor for a year or two and you’re not really going to see it show up in land values,” he says. “But we’re on a third year of this, and we’ve got other challenges that are fairly unprecedent at the same time, so there’s a lot to watch.”

“If you have to declare bankruptcy on your farm, 80% of most farm balance sheets is land, so that’s the large asset that’s going to get sold by the bank,” Shew says. “Government policies to provide support, The Farmers Bridge Assistance is the most recent one that probably plays the largest role, and it just helps farmers get to the end of ‘26, where hopefully balance sheets are in a good place.”

He’s also watching how the provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill come to bear this fall and at year end.

“Reference prices for, rice, in particular, is one that comes to mind. Those will take place and hopefully create some stability, but you have got to get to the end of the year.”

Transaction Volume Stabilization

Nationwide transaction volumes have returned to pre-pandemic (2018–2020) levels, though California is seeing an uptick in volume due to “distress sales” from owners who can no longer float the costs.

“The low interest rates ‘21 to 23, roughly created a great time for folks to invest in land. They wanted to deploy capital, and land is the definition of a real asset,” he says. “You had that boom, and then, of course, as rates went up in ’23 and ’24 and values stabilized at much higher levels, it turned off that capital allocation.”

(Acres.com)

National farmland transaction volumes in 2024 and 2025—transaction count, acreage turnover, and overall volume of dollars—is approximately the same as 2018 and 2020.

“Q4 of ‘21 and Q1 of ‘22, we saw three times the typical amount that would turn over,” he says. “So in Q4 of 2021, we saw 10 billion in farmland in one quarter—high volume and high values.”

While 2021 was the big, from a year-over-year standpoint, that began to fall back, by 20%, then 30%. He says the flattening from 2024 to 2025 is a bright spot to show overall stability.

“We’re not going to continue to see less transactions or lower sales volumes. We’re seeing that stabilize at a more consistent level alongside where interest rates are,” he says. “And presumably, if we see interest rates decrease, we will see that pick back up, and start what may be another cycle.”

You can download the full Market Values Report here.

Who Can Afford These Soaring Farmland Prices?

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 14:14:19 GMT

Farmland prices continue to soar, as a new record Iowa land sale occurred in Dubuque County, Iowa last week with High Point Land Company claiming it auctioned off 60 acres for $30,000 per acre.

With the financial stakes so high, who can afford to make these big money moves?

Bill Gates

Amassed with a newly purchased 2,100-acre farm in North Dakota, Bill Gates’ Red River Trust now holds the title of a cool 270,000 acres of land across the U.S.

(Farm Journal)

However, AgDay reports the tech moguls’ entrance into North Dakota, at a cost of $6,000 per acre, might not be the warm welcome he may have received in other states.

Law-Abiding Citizens

North Dakota hosts “corporate farming laws” that barres corporations and limited liability companies from owning and leasing farms and ranches.

With the Gates’s new $13.5 million farmland purchase, North Dakotans—including the attorney general—are concerned the sale violates the state’s law.

The North Dakota attorney general’s office sent a letter to the Red River Trust on Tuesday, alerting the trustee of the North Dakota land law.

“Our office needs to confirm how your company uses this land and whether this use meets any of the statutory exceptions, such as the business purpose exception,” wrote Drew Wrigley, North Dakota attorney general.

The attorney general has not yet released a response from the Red River Trust.

A Dose of Perspective

The Microsoft cofounder isn’t far ahead in the private farmland ownership charts.

As of 2022, Gates sits on the farmland list among other celebrities mixed with a few farmers:

Bill Gates: 270,000 acres in 19 states, with his largest holdings in Louisiana (69,100 acres), Arkansas (48,000 acres) and Nebraska (20,500 acres).
Ted Turner: Founder of CNN who owns over 200,00 acres in Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota and New Mexico.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick: Owners of Wonderful. The two boast 192,000 acres in California and Texas.
Offutt family: Owners of RDO Equipment, also own 190,000 acres in North Dakota, where they primarily grow potatoes.
Fanjul family: Florida Crystals Corp. owners tend 152,000 acres of sugarcane production in South Florida.
Boswell family: Owners of the JG Bowell Tomato Company that tend to 150,000 acres of tomatoes and cotton in Central California.
Stan Kroenke: Real estate mogul and owner of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment who owns 124,000 acres in Montana.
Gaylon Lawrence Jr: CEO of the Lawrence Group who owns 115,000 acres from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
John Molone: Founder of TCI—a company he later sold to AT&T for a cool $50 billion—hosts 100,000 acres in Colorado, Wyoming, Maine and New Mexico—land thatincludes various well-known ranches.
Simplot family: Operate 82,500 acres in Idaho and Washington including potato production and cattle feedlots.

More on farmland:
New Farmland Price Record: $25,000 Per Acre in Plymouth County, Iowa

Up, Up, Up: 3-Year Farmland Price Trends from 18 States

No Price Top in Sight for Farmland Values

New Farmland Bill Would Create a Public Database for Foreign Land Ownership

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 03:07:00 GMT

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) introduced a new bipartisan bill , the Farmland Security Act of 2023 , seeking to further boost transparency in foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.

The legislation builds upon measures introduced by the same senators in the Farmland Security Act of 2022 and amendments to the 1978 Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. This bill would require greater transparency for foreign purchases of U.S. ag land, impose stronger penalties for reporting non-compliance, and mandate USDA to audit a minimum of 10% of foreign ag land ownership reports annually.

The issue of foreign ownership is increasingly important as nearly half of U.S. ag land is owned by individuals aged 65 and over, and approximately 100 million acres are expected to change hands over the next decade due to retirement.

What’s included in the Farmland Security Act of 2023?

The measure necessitates a transition to a digital filing system and a public database on foreign ownership for researching ownership trends. It also requires the USDA to report on foreign investment impacts. The bill further emphasizes transparency, complete and accurate data collection, and greater understanding of foreign ownership.

The new legislation introduces stricter penalties for non-compliant foreign owners or “shell companies” by removing the current fee cap of 25% of land valuation, imposing a 100% land valuation fee for non-reporting shell companies unless corrected within 60 days of notification. It authorizes $2 million annually for administration as amended in the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act.

Other stipulations include USDA research into foreign ownership of agricultural production capacity and foreign participation in U.S. ag, along with investigations into the use of “shell companies”. State and county-level staff would also be trained to identify non-reporting foreign-owned farmland.