Farmland prices soar — along with farm debt

[marmar]

from Grist:


Farmland prices soar — along with farm debt
By Susie Cagle


While small-scale producers of fruits and vegetables are scraping by, it’s a whole ‘nother story for corn and soy farmers. (It’s always a whole ‘nother story for corn and soy farmers, really.) Well-oiled subsidies, overseas demand, ethanol like whoa plus a drop in production thanks to the drought are all pushing crop prices up — and, in turn, prices for the land those crops are grown on.
farmerShutterstock

The New York Times reports on the gleeful farmers, speculating investors, and impending economic doom.

Across the American heartland, farmland prices are soaring. In places like Waco, Neb., and Chickasaw County, Iowa, where the boom-and-bust cycle of farming reaches deep into the psyche, some families are selling the land that they have worked for generations, to cash in while they can. …

Sensing opportunity, investment firms are buying, too. David Taylor, of Oskaloosa, Kan., said he was saddened to sell his family’s farm but that the prices were too good to resist. …

“I bawled like a baby,” Mr. Taylor, 59, said. His crop-producing fields sold for $10,100 an acre.

In Iowa, despite the drought last year, farmland prices have nearly doubled since 2009, to an average $8,296 an acre, far surpassing the last boom’s peak in 1979. In Nebraska, the price of irrigated land has also doubled since 2009.

That’s given farmers who’ve chosen to stay a whole lot of value to borrow against, and borrow they are. Farmers’ debt load has risen almost a third since 2007. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/news/farmland-prices-soar-along-with-farm-debt/

[leftyohiolib]

1. he was saddened to sell his family’s farm but that the prices were too good to resist... this is how

agro-business gets to dominate

[NickB79]

2. If the droughts we've seen in recent years become a persistant feature

Due to climate change, we're going to see a lot of people losing everything once it becomes apparent the Great Plains can no longer support the kind of farming we've become accustomed to.