By Ryan Hanrahan
ProFarmer’s Mike Walsten reported that “farmland values for the Central Corn Belt were flat in the second quarter of 2026 from a year earlier, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This is the slowest year-over-year growth since the fourth quarter of 2024, the bank notes.”
“Values for ‘good’ agricultural land also showed no change in the second quarter of 2026 relative to the first quarter, according to survey responses from agricultural lenders in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa,” Walsten reported. “Illinois and Iowa farmland values saw year-over-year increases, while Indiana and Wisconsin farmland values note year-over-year decreases.”
But “in real terms (after being adjusted for inflation with the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or PCEPI), there was a year-over-year decrease of 3.7% in district ag land values,” Walsten reported. “‘This is the largest year-over-year decline in real farmland values for the district since the third quarter of 2016,’ the bank states.”
“Only 5% of the respondents believe farmland values will rise in the third quarter of 2026, while 81% anticipate them to be stable and 14% expect them to fall,” Walsten reported. “A large share of survey respondents (43%) say farmland is overvalued; 57% viewed farmland as appropriately valued (not a single respondent reported it as undervalued).”
The low number of respondents believing that farmland values will rise in the third quarter of 2026 is in line with results from the August Ag Economy Barometer, which reported that “the Short-Term Farmland Value Expectations Index declined from 124 in June to 119 in July, and the long-term index decreased from 166 to 152.
Source : illinois.edu