Midwest Farmland Values Mixed

Midwest farmland values were mixed in the third quarter, according to the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. An agriculture survey from the Chicago Fed, as part of a slew of third quarter Fed reports, show farmland values were one percent lower than last year. The district covers parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. This was the first quarterly decline for agricultural land values in the region since the fourth quarter of 2016. Almost two-thirds of survey respondents expected farmland values to be stable during the fourth quarter of 2018, but 32 percent expected a decrease in farmland values in the final quarter of this year and only two percent expected an increase. However, the report says agricultural land values would have experienced more downward pressure in the absence of exceptional crop yields. In 2018, the region’s corn and soybean yields jumped to all-time highs, 198 bushels per acre for corn and 59 bushels per acre for soybeans.