Future of Farms

Our Incredible Vanishing Farmland

https://www.drovers.com/article/our-incredible-vanishing-farmland We lose three acres of farmland in the United States every minute. You read that right. Three acres every sixty seconds. This wakeup call comes courtesy of John Piotti, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT), who spoke about conservation and Farmland at the 2019 Trust in Food Symposium Jan. 15 and 16 in Chicago. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve lost 31 million acres of farmland—that’s equivalent to all the farmland in Iowa. That’s over 1.5 million acres a year, or three acres every minute,” Piotti says. READ ARTICLE

2018 USDA Land Value Report

Agricultural Land Values Highlights The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,140 per acre for 2018, up $60 per acre (1.9 percent) from 2017 values. Regional changes in the average value of farm real estate ranged from an 8.3 percent increase in the Southern Plains region (includes Texas (9.1% increase) and Oklahoma (5.3% increase) to 1.4 percent decrease in the Northern Plains region. The highest farm real estate values were in the Corn Belt region at $6,430 per acre. The Mountain region had the lowest farm real …

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Land Transition Can Lead to Unintended Consequences

Land Transition Can Lead to Unintended Consequences by Allan Vyhnalek, University of Nebraska Extensions Grandpa and Grandma farmed. They retired. They had two irrigated quarters. They had two sons who had started farming operations themselves. So, their transition plan was to give a quarter to each of the sons at their passing. Grandpa passed away, followed by the Grandmother about a year or so later. The lawyer handling the estate was not given specific instructions about the transfer of the quarters. He just put number one and number two in a hat, the sons drew a number. Then there were …

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