Agricultural Land Values Hit New High in 2017

Agricultural land values, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, hit a new high in 2017, according to the annual survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The United States farm real estate value averaged $3,080 per acre in 2017, up $70 per acre or 2.3 percent from 2016.  The USDA said regional changes in the average agricultural land value ranged from an 8.7 percent increase in the Pacific region to a 1.8 percent decrease in the Northern Plains region.

In the F&W 25-state service region, which encompasses the eastern U.S. from the Texas Plains across the Southern Pine Belt to the Northeast and New England, the average agricultural land value was $3,568 per acre in 2017, $488 above the overall national average.

Drilling down further, farm land values in the nine states comprising the Southeast, Delta and Southern Plains regions were up 4.1 percent to an average of $2,943 per acre.  In the Appalachian region, farm real estate values increased by 1.1 percent to an average of $3,800 per acre, and in the Northeast, agricultural land values increased 0.8 percent to an average of $5,050 per acre.

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