News

Plains states’ farmland up 25 percent

Farmland values in the Plains states of the U.S. surged to new record highs in the third quarter.

The latest quarterly survey of ag bankers in the Federal Reserve Bank’s tenth district shows cropland values rose more than 25 percent over year-ago levels, with ranchland values up 14 percent.

Nebraska posted the strongest gains with irrigated and nonirrigated land values rising approximately 40 percent above last year’s levels.

In the southern Plains, weaker farm income—the result of severe drought—limited the gains in farmland values.

The Fed’s Tenth District includes Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Oklahoma and western Missouri.