Micheal Clements, NAFB News Service

The 2020 land market closes with optimism, according to Farmers National Company. The year started with land prices strengthening before COVID-19. The pandemic paused the land market before interest returned in the summer. Now, Randy Dickhut of Farmers National Company says an improved outlook for grain prices and government aid increasing farm income has resurrected interest in farmland. The optimism has fueled the demand for good cropland and the resulting surge in prices as farmers are aggressively buying land while investors also enter the market. The rising demand to buy land is evidenced by the fact that real estate sales for Farmers National Company during October and November were up 49 percent from the same time a year ago. Dickhut says rising demand with a low supply normally brings higher prices in a marketplace, which is what is happening in the ag land market. Sales prices for cropland are rising and for some sales, reaching levels last seen in 2012.