Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2012
Poster Presentation
An Analysis of Farmland Values 1982-2011
Bryan Schreder
Faculty Mentor: Don Johnson
Accounting and Finance
Farmland represents a large majority of U.S. farm sector assets and investments.
There have been swings in values that have affected the financial well-being of
agricultural producers. This research project picks up from when land values collapsed
in the 1980’s and goes through 2011. It takes a look into the growth of farmland values
since then and it looks at a few factors that have played a role in the rise of value. The
factors looked into are corn and soybean commodity prices, corn supply, interest rates,
ethanol production, and the proximity to urban areas. In the past 20 years, farmland
values have gone up because of higher commodity prices, the introduction and
production of ethanol, lowering of interest rates, and a lower supply of corn in the past
few years. Higher commodity prices have helped bring in strong earnings for
agricultural producers, and that has helped farmland withstand the housing downturn.
Even when the markets fell in 2008, farmland values remained growing.