Farmland values across the midwest region fell by one-percent during the second quarter compared to a year ago but they rose one-percent in Iowa, according to a report from the Chicago District Federal Bank report.
Sam Funk is director of ag analytics and research for the Iowa Farm Bureau.”If anybody out there thought that land values would maintain and sustain as strong as they have, I think that would’ve been a shock for most people to think anything else than maybe a little weakness,” Funk says, “just because of general economic conditions we’ve seen across the district and across the primary commodities that we have in the Midwest.”
Funk says Iowa’s farmland values are in better shape than in the rest of the region. “The fact that they haven’t fallen any more than they have I think is a very good sign of the strength that we have in the underlying asset value with land,” Funk says. The biggest factor for farmland values was lower commodity prices, which he says was caused partially by weather extremes this year.
“Iowa actually had stronger appearance of good crop conditions relative to some of our neighbors in Illinois or Indiana,” Funk says. “That’s been seen in several U.S.D.A. reports and other factors where we got more of our crop planted and it does look better generally than in some of our neighboring states.”
The Chicago Fed District Survey covers all of Iowa, parts of Illinois and Indiana as well as southern Wisconsin and the lower peninsula of Michigan.
(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)