Farm Acreage Continues to Increase with Crop Prices

The NY Times describes how the increasing prices of crops has allowed farmers to increase farm acreage into previously unthinkable plots. Marginal land is now productive land with the high prices available for crops.

“Across much of the Midwest the sharp increase in farm earnings has driven the price of farmland to previously unimaginable — and, some say, unsustainable — levels. But in the process, to much less fanfare, the financial rewards have also encouraged farmers to put ever more land into production, including parcels that until recently were too small or too poor in quality to warrant a second glance…

…farmers, flush from the most profitable years in decades and looking for better places to store money than low-interest savings accounts or a turbulent stock market, are putting their money in land.”

According to an Iowa State study, farmland in Iowa increased 32% last year to $6,700 per acre.

See “As Crop Prices Soar, Iowa Farms Add Acreage” for more details.

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