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Farmland values starting to soften

Farmland values have been resilient to low commodity prices, but an official with Farm Credit Services of America says the market is softening.

Angie Treptow says Iowa farmland values increased slightly in 2017, and that momentum continued into this year.

“The first six months of 2018 (farmland values) have slightly increased or stayed the same.  But I will say in the last 30 days we’ve seen some sales that have taken place at auctions that have shown that maybe it’s going to soften a little bit.”

Speaking to Brownfield at the Iowa Women in Ag Conference in Ankeny, Iowa, she says trade disruptions and the associated fall in commodity prices have impacted the land market.

“What we also track for farmland values is how yields turn out.  The last two years have been fairly good yields, so I think that’s kind of offset some of the price.  And that’s kind of held our land values from taking a bigger decline than what we were maybe anticipating.”

Treptow says strong yields have been one of the main reasons farmland values have held steady while the overall ag economy struggles.