Just outstanding! This was of such interest to me, and i greatly appreciate your white paper. I was wondering, how can a small investor buy farmland? and how many acres constitutes "small farm" as you suggested buying diverse small farms? How many acres would that be? Thank you again.
alextiller
· 10 months ago
Hi Pam. Thanks for your comment. A “small farm” is difficult to define. The USDA would say smaller than what I described in my paper. Many of my readers are high net-worth investors interested in creating a “farmland portfolio” or Midwest commercial farmers who own/operate pretty large land masses. For the purposes of this paper, I would say 100 to 500 acre parcels. That being said, there are many other farmers that own sustainable and organic farms that do very well on far less land. They do not participate in commodity crop markets like corn and beans that require large chunks’ of land and economies of scale. Their farms are less mechanized, so they require more physical labor, but they generate solid returns growing fruits and vegetables for human consumption. Here is a guy farming ONE acre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsc4YcXgV2g I know some farmers might laugh at this and say it’s not possible to be a farmer with only one acre. (They would call that gardening) But I disagree. If he is earning money (selling his crop) and he approaches his farming practices in a professional way, I think he is a farmer. Webster calls a farm: “a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes.” I would add…with the goal of deriving income or profit from the agricultural product.
Good luck to you!
J
· 10 months ago
Alex - you source your "Inflation-Adjusted Average Land Prices, 1910-2006" from the USDA, but I cannot find this data on USDA prior to 1997. Could you please give us the exact link to the USDA data?
alextiller
· 10 months ago
There is not one link that I can provide that shows all of this data. (that would have been nice though) I had to compile it by hand which was done by pulling Historic USDA Land Values reports. Each report usually only covers four years, so it is fairly tedious. Here is the most recent report which covers 2004 to 2008: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Ag...
Good luck!
-Alex Tiller
Colvin
· 9 months ago
We have done some farmland value research as well. Feel free to check out some of our findings on our blog. Nice work. It's really neat to find other people that see how great farmland investment is.
All Comments
and how many acres constitutes "small farm" as you suggested buying diverse small farms? How many acres would that be? Thank you again.
Here is a guy farming ONE acre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsc4YcXgV2g
I know some farmers might laugh at this and say it’s not possible to be a farmer with only one acre. (They would call that gardening) But I disagree. If he is earning money (selling his crop) and he approaches his farming practices in a professional way, I think he is a farmer.
Webster calls a farm: “a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes.” I would add…with the goal of deriving income or profit from the agricultural product.
Good luck to you!
Good luck!
-Alex Tiller