FNC: Farmers Purchasing Most Ag Land Nationwide

Who is purchasing U.S. farmland in 2021?

Randy Dickhut Senior Vice President of Real Estate Operations at the Farmers National Company, said when looking at the numbers nationwide, a wide variety of farmers with operations of all sizes are purchasing the biggest percentage of farmland.

“The farmer is the prevalent buyer, and that typically, on average, most places they'll buy 60 to 80% of the good cropland that comes up for sale. More than that, towards the 80%, so we see that. And then you get in some areas, say like North Dakota, that has probably 90 to 95% of farmers buy it.”

He added as the farm economy improved in 2021, more and more buyers were getting back into the farmland market.

“Last year, and at other times in the last few years, there have been fewer farmers trying to bid on the land with the farm economy the way it was. Starting last fall, going definitely through the winter, and still saying this summer sale season, there are more farmers actively bidding, but it's still not quite the deep that it was as far as the aggressive bidding we saw in 2012 or 13, but there are definitely more bidders at each auction than there were.”

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