the unbiased view of the NY Times

[Edmund55]

(M  F  P   handouts , explain   that  to   my  urban  relative , contacts  asking , grilling  me  - ?) 

Whom are these urban relatives of yours that are banned from farming?

There's land, M&E, livestock, etc. for sale all over; rented land easily available for the right rental terms.

Tell your urbanized relative's to get off their bums and start farming.  Don't complain, get into the farming game.

[rsbs]

200 acres irrigated land Nebraska $750,000 cash, pretty new pivot. Nice starter farm for someone that can come up with the $250,000 down payment. Get one of those railroad $100,000 jobs, work hard and live simple for five years and become a farmer.

Or just keep bellyaching.

[Kurt#1]

That seems kind of cheap compared to land here in Iowa. Ground around here is valued at $8000 to $11000 and has sold for $13000. Rents on the low end are around $300 an acre. Crop ground will grow around 270 bu. corn and around 70bu. soybeans. Current corn price at the river is $5.9 and beans are $14.32

[rickgthf]

  Iowa, 270 bu. corn, 70 bu. beans?  Not according to USDA records for the past ten years. Iowa only just made 200 bu corn twice, then just barely, averaged 182, never made more than 56 bu beans.  The average corn price between 2010 & 2019 was just over $4 only because of two drought years above $6.  Throw out those two drought years and the average price drops to $3.70.  $3.70 x 182 doesn't leave much room to pay for $8,000 land, much less $13,000. 

  With land rent at $300 per acre, it would take 27 years just to recover the principal at the $8,000 price.

[Kurt#1]

Where I live in Iowa the corn and beans yield that.  You are taking a state average, the entire state isn't where I live.  Your prices aren't current prices.

That's like saying the Indiana cars only drive a maximum of 65 mph and ignore the Indy Speedway.

Where I live we have access to the river terminals and our current prices reflect that.

Here's current bids https://www.rivervalleycoop.com/grain#grain-bids

Take a look at some of the ag land values in this area https://www.acrevalue.com/map/IA/?lat=41.032814&lng=-91.025018&zoom=15

[rsbs]

I believe that Nebraska has high real estate taxes, so that probably serves to depress land values, just like it does in Minnesota. Comparable land across the border in Iowa, with more modest taxation, is several thousand of dollars more expensive.

And that was the best deal that I saw on one of those landbin sites. South Dakota land has pretty much doubled in price in the last year, and there is upwards pressure all over.

[Kurt#1]

Corn's over $6 today and beans are headed for $15.

I looked back and found a spreadsheet from 2009, on it corn on the one farm was 207 bu per acre and beans were 59.7, that was then. 

I don't know where the later spreadsheets went but I know that it was either 2011 or 2012 that corn was 235 and beans were 65 or so.  And since then with some different hybrids and using fungicide yields have gone up to the levels I spoke.  I also was on a neighbors that was a little over 300 in 2019.

In the river valley with good soil and moisture we've been blessed.  If you head west and north or far south it's a little different.  South of DesMoines it looks different and some of the other areas are either hilly or sandy.  Not knocking those areas, and they don't seem to have the same prices available.