From Agrimoney:
Farmland values in major US agricultural states ended 2015
on a weak note, recording the worst declines on some measures not seen since
the 1980s' price slump – and with further losses seen likely, official data
showed.
Much watched quarterly reports from the Federal Reserve on
land prices showed values in its Chicago region, covering major Corn Belt
states such as Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, shedding 3% last year.
The drop, which followed a 3% fall in 2014, represented the
first period of back-to-back falls in annual land prices since the mid-1980s,
towards the tail end of a six-year market slump during which regional values
near-halved, in a correction fuelled by soaring US interest rates.
Prices in Iowa, the top US corn-producing state, have
suffered particularly badly in the latest retreat, recording a third successive
year of annual decline in prices, over which prices have dropped by more than
13%, the central bank data showed.
Biggest drop since
1987
Separately, the Fed's Kansas City bank, which covers largely
Plains states, such as major wheat producers Kansas and Oklahoma, also revealed
an accelerated downturn in farm prices in its region.
Price change, as measured as the average for the October-to-December
quarter compared with that a year before, hit a negative 3.7% for non-irrigated
cropland, the fastest rate of decline since early 1987.
And ranchland prices, which rose 10% over 2014 amid buoyant livestock
markets, retreated with cattle values....MORE
