- The overall U.S. economy may be struggling, but you wouldn't know it from a visit to the Farm Belt. A boom is under way across much of the rural Midwest, with agricultural land prices growing at a double-digit clip and farm auctions in certain counties fetching record sales.
From the Wall Street Jornal:
The overall U.S. economy may be struggling, but you wouldn't know it from a visit to the Farm Belt.
The signs of a land-grab mania are everywhere. The Des Moines Register reported this week that two tracts in O'Brien County in the northwestern part of Iowa sold for $9,700 an acre, while one land broker estimated that farmland has appreciated on average by about $1,000 an acre since the end of the summer.
By comparison, Iowa farmland values averaged $4,371 per acre in 2009, and $5,321 for the highest grade properties.
See The Farm Belt Boom at the Wall Street Journal for more.
