Farmland values in Kansas may be as flat as the topography. The Kansas Agricultural Land Values and Trends 2023 survey predicts that 2024 could bring no increase in land values across that state.
Professor Allen Featherstone of the Kansas State University Department of Agricultural Economics said that alternatives like hunting, oil and gas exploration, and wind turbine development – other than farming – could provide additional value for the land. But there is much to overcome.
The report laid out the difficulties ahead in 2024:
“The year 2023 will go down in the books as a year with rapid retrenchment in commodity prices. While prices did fall, many farmers had already priced a portion of their crops before prices fell. In addition, crop insurance revenue guarantees were high. Thus, while 2023 was another difficult year due to continuing drought, net farm income increased in 2023. The upcoming year will likely be a more difficult picture with lower crop insurance guarantees.
Wheat is set for the 2024 crop. The reference price declined by 16% for wheat and is expected to decline by 18% for corn and 13% for soybeans from 2023 to 2024. Without corresponding decreases in crop inputs, 2024 looks to be more difficult income wise than either 2022 or 2023.”
Overall land values could fall well short of the 5.4% average annual increase since 1950. Land values will almost certainly come nowhere near the sizable increases where averages increased 25.2% in 2022 and 16.3% in 2023.
The study cited weakening commodity prices, higher interest rates, and lower farm income as weighty factors on land values in 2024.
