Twentieth Century Trends in Farmland Values
Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics
Farmland values have exhibited unprecedented
increases in recent years.
Nationwide, the compound annual rate of increase
in farmland prices has been on the
order of 16.5 percent during the past five
years. The value of an asset appreciating at this
rate doubles every four and a half years. If this
rate of increase were to persist until the end of
the century, land currently valued at $1,000
per acre would be worth $33,535 per acre in
the year 2000. If the rate were to drop to onehalf
the level experienced during the past five
years, the value of that same land would rise
to "only" $6,192 per acre by the year 2000.
