Farmland Value, Land Prices and Investment

What sets the price of agricultural land

Agricultural land is priced on two things at once: what it can earn from farming, and what someone else might pay to use it for something else. In a grain region far from any city, the first one dominates, and values track crop prices, yields, cash rents and interest rates. Close to a growing town, the second takes over, and land can sell for several times its farming value because buyers are thinking about houses, warehouses or solar leases.

Within a district, the differences between two farms usually come down to a handful of things: soil quality and drainage, access to irrigation water and the legal right to use it, field size and shape, buildings and fences, road access, and how far it is to a grain elevator, packhouse or livestock market. This guide is general information, not financial or investment advice. Land values change every year, so always check the date on any figure, including the ones below.

Appraisers usually value a farm three ways and weigh the results. The sales comparison approach looks at what similar land nearby sold for recently. The income approach divides the net rent the land could earn by a capitalization rate, which is why farmland values tend to soften when interest rates climb. The cost approach adds the value of buildings, grain bins and irrigation equipment on top of bare land.

US farmland values per acre

The standard source for US farmland prices is the USDA’s annual Land Values report, built from a survey of farm operators. The Land Values 2026 Summary, published in July 2026, gives these national averages:

Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Land Values 2026 Summary (July 2026).

A national average hides a very wide range. Irrigated cropland in the Corn Belt or California sells for many times the price of dryland pasture in the Southwest, and the same report breaks values down by region and state, with irrigated and non-irrigated cropland listed separately. If you’re pricing a specific farm, the state table is the starting point, and recent sales of similar land nearby (what an appraiser calls comparables) matter more than any average. Our piece on farmland values in the Mid-South shows how much values move from state to state.

Farmland values in Saskatchewan, Ontario and the rest of Canada

In Canada, the reference is Farm Credit Canada’s annual Farmland Values Report. The 2025 report found that the average value of cultivated farmland rose 9.3 percent across the country in 2025, led by the Prairies: Manitoba up 12.2 percent, Alberta 11.4 percent and Saskatchewan 9.4 percent. Ontario rose a more modest 2.2 percent and Quebec 4.8 percent, while British Columbia fell 1.7 percent.

Those are percentage changes, and the starting points are very different. Ontario land, especially near the Greater Toronto Area, has long sold for much more per acre than most Saskatchewan land, so a smaller percentage gain in Ontario can still be a larger dollar change per acre. FCC publishes per-acre values by region on its interactive map. Our guide to farmland prices in Ontario and Saskatchewan compares the two provinces in more detail.

Checking a farm before you buy

Buying farm land goes better when the main questions are answered before you make an offer. The usual checks are:

• Title, easements and any liens, through a lawyer or title company.
• Zoning and land-use rules, including limits on splitting or building.
• Water: wells, irrigation rights and how secure they are in a dry year.
• Soil type and drainage. In the US, the USDA Web Soil Survey maps soils down to the field.
• Flood risk, past crop yields and current leases or tenants.

Past crop performance is often the hardest thing to get, because sellers rarely hand over yield maps. Satellite imagery fills some of that gap. With satellite crop monitoring, you can draw the field boundary or upload a KML or shapefile and compare crop health maps from different dates, which shows whether the same corner of a field struggles every season. Lenders and insurers use similar farm-level data when they assess land, which is what our crop loan and insurance tools are for.

Ways people hold farmland

Most farmland is still owned by the people who farm it, but there are other routes. Some owners buy land and rent it to a neighboring farmer for a cash rent or a share of the crop. Others hold it indirectly through publicly listed farmland REITs or private farmland funds, which pool land across many farms and regions. Each route has its own costs, tax treatment and risks, and none is right for everyone, so take advice from a qualified adviser before committing money.

For the farming side of the question, our guide to what 40 acres can earn works through crop choices on a small holding, and the piece on UK farmland investment explains how funds and farm stocks work there.