Midwest Farmland Values See Biggest Rise in 35 Years



Jim Rogers and David Nealis in Singapore

This is good news for the Midwest of the USA. It will be interesting to see how this affects the price of corn and soybeans in the coming years. And I have to give credit were credit is due, Jim Rogers suggested that I should  buy a farm more than 18 months ago and he gave multiple reasons for it. I didn’t buy a farm but I did make investments into agriculture that have been very fruitful. Thanks Jim for the great guidance!

Please read the article below from Reuters on Midwest Farmland Values.

Thanks for reading my blog.

David Nealis  

Midwest Farmland Values See Biggest Rise in 35 Years

Published: Thursday, 16 Feb 2012 | 5:41 PM ET

By: Reuters

 Prices of farmland in the U.S. Midwest Corn Belt rose 22 percent in 2011, the biggest annual gain since 1976, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said on Thursday in its quarterly survey of agricultural bankers.

"The year 2011 may go down in the annals of U.S. agriculture as a once-in-a-generation phenomenon," the bank said in summarizing its survey results of 205 bankers in Iowa, northern Illinois and Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.

"Undergirding the huge upward movement in farmland values was an unusual shift up in agricultural prices across the board. Not only did major crop prices move higher, but key livestock and dairy prices were higher as well," it said.

The Fed said that although gains in farmland sales prices were lower in the October-December 2011 quarter compared with the preceding one, more than 40 percent of the bankers surveyed expected continued price gains in the first quarter of 2012.