Post by Queue on Nov 18, 2011 1:01:34 GMT -5
Farmland prices surge to record; investors grow wary
(Reuters) - U.S. farmland prices in the third quarter surged to the highest levels in more than three decades amid an accelerating agricultural boom that has so far defied fears of a bubble about to burst.
Prices hit record highs in the plains, where wheat and cattle dominate production, and jumped 25 percent in the Midwest Corn Belt, where bumper grain crops and recovering livestock markets put more money in farmers' wallets and enticed investors to bid up for the fertile ground, according to two Federal Reserve bank surveys issued on Tuesday.
The surge has picked up pace even as major crop prices fall from peaks earlier this year, cheering farmers who have seen their land values rise nearly tenfold in a decade, but vexing economists who worry that a country still mired deep in a housing slump can ill afford a destabilizing rural crash.
agrinewspk.blogspot.com/2011/11/farmland-prices-surge-to-record.html
(Reuters) - U.S. farmland prices in the third quarter surged to the highest levels in more than three decades amid an accelerating agricultural boom that has so far defied fears of a bubble about to burst.
Prices hit record highs in the plains, where wheat and cattle dominate production, and jumped 25 percent in the Midwest Corn Belt, where bumper grain crops and recovering livestock markets put more money in farmers' wallets and enticed investors to bid up for the fertile ground, according to two Federal Reserve bank surveys issued on Tuesday.
The surge has picked up pace even as major crop prices fall from peaks earlier this year, cheering farmers who have seen their land values rise nearly tenfold in a decade, but vexing economists who worry that a country still mired deep in a housing slump can ill afford a destabilizing rural crash.
agrinewspk.blogspot.com/2011/11/farmland-prices-surge-to-record.html