US farmland values steady

CHICAGO: Farmland prices in the central US Plains stayed mostly steady in 2014 despite lower farm incomes but weakness is expected this year amid continued depressed grain prices, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said on Friday.
“Following several years of strong income and gains in cropland values, 2014 appeared to be a turning point for crop producers,” the bank said in its quarterly survey of district farm banks. “Lower crop prices and elevated input costs trimmed profit margins and slowed cropland value appreciation.”
The Kansas City Fed’s district includes most of Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma and parts of Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. The region is the top producer of winter wheat and major grower of corn, oilseeds and beef cattle.
“In the fourth quarter, the average value of non-irrigated cropland equaled year-ago levels and irrigated cropland values increased less than 1 percent,” the Fed said.
But the bank noted sharp variations based on farm income trends. Nebraska, the region’s top corn producer, saw non-irrigated land values drop 3.4 percent from a year ago. In Oklahoma, with more grazing land, those values jumped 19 percent.