After several years of rapidly rising farmland values, 2024 saw things begin to cool off. Randy Dickhut, farmland sales expert with Agricultural Economic Insights, says the cyclical up-and-down nature of farmland prices is normal.

That’s correct, and that’s very typical. Listening or visiting with brokers and agricultural people around the country and reading the data, that’s very typical. It slows down after there is a surge in the amount of sales of farmland. When the prices are higher, then it gets a little more uncertain, or people have already sold, and they’re just going to hold tight now.”

He says the prices started peaking in the “I” states in the early 2020s.

“Yes, and that corresponds with that double-digit run-up in land values during that time for a lot of states, specifically the ‘I’ states, with very strong commodity prices, some good yields in a lot of places, and uncertainty in the market post-COVID, and some other things that drove the land prices higher. And the people, this would be families that inherited land, estates that needed to sell the land, or even some investors that wanted to capitalize on those higher prices. They decide to sell, and those prices run up. We saw the same thing leading up to 2012-‘13.”

Other states stood out both positively and negatively.

“Well, Ohio stood out. It was a little more consistent and didn’t quite see the swings. You know, the amount of sales would vary, and some of that, you know, Minnesota, was a little different. I know, Kansas, looking at other data we didn’t include there, that have pretty active sales during the time period, they had for late ‘23 to early 24.”