Stephen Gandel

Farmland: a great investment

Writer, TIME, Jun 14, 11.

Tagged with land use, agriculture, farmland

This is usually a slow time of year for farm sales. It’s past prime planting season. Yet, Sam Kain, Des Moines area manager for land sales at Farmer’s National, is busy. He has 3 auctions this week. Most of the 30 or so bidders who show up will be farmers. But an increasing number of people buying land these days have no intention of planting seeds, at least not themselves. They are investors and a growing number of them are getting interested in farmland.

Just how hot is American farmland? By some accounts the value of farmland is up 20% this year alone. That’s better than stocks or gold. During the past two decades, owning farmland would have produced an annual return of nearly 11% according to Hancock Agricultural Investment Group. And that covers a time period when tech stocks boomed and crashed, and housing boomed and crashed. So at a time when investors are still looking for safety, farmland is becoming the “it” investment.

Full Story: America’s Hottest Investment: Farmland
Source: TIME, June 1, 2011

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