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Survey: producers more optimistic about long-term farmland values

Ag producers are slightly more optimistic farmland values will improve in the next five years, according to the latest Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer.

Jim Mintert is the survey’s principal investigator and director of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture.

“There’s more optimism in that long-term outlook than there is in the short-run, which isn’t too surprising,” he says. “Particularly when you look at it from a long-term perspective, look at a long-data series of farmland values, those values over long periods of times do tend to go up. I think responses to that question in the survey do reflect that.”

The Long-Term Farmland Value Expectations Index, a five-year outlook, rose five points to a reading of 142. According to the barometer, that reading is just four points lower than in March 2022.

He tells Brownfield although the long-term index continues to provide a more optimistic view of future farmland values, the percentage of producers who think values could weaken in the next five years has been rising.

“Seventeen percent of the people in the survey said that they think farmland prices could go down over the next five years. A year ago that was 13 percent and two years ago that was only 7 percent,” he says. “So there’s a little bit of a change going on there too. Overall, I would characterize it as people becoming a little more nervous about where farmland values are headed than they were particularly going back one year or two years.”

Farmers surveyed say they are less optimistic about short-term farmland values.

“This month 20 percent, one out of five producers surveyed, think that farmland values in the next 12 months could go down,” Mintert says.

The Short-Term Farmland Value Expectations Index, a 12-month outlook, fell six points to a reading of 113.

The Ag Economy Barometer is a monthly national survey of 400 U.S. agricultural producers.