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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What the New Tax Law Means for Agriculture

New article May 16, 2018 by Farm Credit Bank of Texas (land.com) The largest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in three decades went into effect this year, impacting farmers, ranchers and other rural landowners in a variety of ways. For the most part, financial experts anticipate benefits for these groups. “The 2018 tax law changes include several items that I feel will be beneficial to agricultural producers,” says Burl Lowery, a Brownwood, Texas, certified public accountant and director of Central Texas Farm Credit. “The increase in the exemption in estate and generation-skipping taxes to $11.2 million in 2018 will …

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Questions and Answers with George Clift, ALC

George Clift was recently interviewed for a question & answer article in the January 18, 2018 issue of the Farm Journal LandOwner Newsletter.  See the article here. There are other articles about the New Tax Bill and Farmland Values you may also find interesting.  Click here to read the entire newsletter.

Texas Bankers Speak Up on Land Values

Agricultural Survey…Quarterly Survey of Agricultural Credit Conditions in the Eleventh Federal Reserve District. The Eleventh Federal Reserve District consists of Texas, northern Louisiana, and southern New Mexico. The survey shows, dryland and ranchland values both increasing while irrigated land values dropped. See the entire report here.

Developments in 2016 Texas Land Markets

Clift Land Brokers was well represented at the 27th Annual Outlook for Texas Land Markets in San Antonio in April. As usual, a lot of great information came out of this conference. One highlight was the presentation by Dr. Charles E. Gilliland,  PhD, Research Economist for Texas A & M University Real Estate Center on Texas Land Values. Click here for a copy of that presentation.  While 2017 1st quarter land values were up statewide 1.8% over 2016 4th quarter, and while other regions showed an increase, Region 1 – TX Panhandle and South Plains Region was down 3.4% over …

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Crop Insurance Priority 1

Crop Insurance: Priority #1, by Agri-Pulse Communications No matter who wins this November’s presidential election, one of the first items facing a new Secretary of Agriculture will be developing a 2018 farm bill, a process sure to begin early in 2017. As we start that effort, it is worth noting that for all its rich diversity, American agriculture seems to be united behind a few large overarching issues: coordinated and scientific regulatory policy by EPA, FDA, and USDA; healthy trade promotion; biotechnology; and farm labor issues, including immigration. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE  

A Positive Take On Land Values

Expect Land Equilibrium Marcia Zarley Taylor, DTN Executive Editor LOUISVILLE, Ky. (DTN) — U.S. agriculture could dodge the long-feared collapse in farm real estate prices this commodity cycle, contend economists, lenders and appraisers attending a Farm Foundation meeting this week. But some cautioned the bubble more likely to burst will be used farm equipment values over the next year if profit margins don’t improve. “Land values haven’t seen near the pullback that everyone predicted,” observed Bruce Sherrick, director of the TIAA-CREF Center for Farmland Research at the University of Illinois. That moderation makes sense, he added, given that farmland investors …

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