Iowa Land Auction Prices, March 19-25, 2021

Posted on March 29, 2021 at 10:15 AM by Jim Rothermich

It was a good week of auction activity and prices did not disappoint. Sioux County topped the market at $14,200/acre. Later this week the USDA will release two critical reports that affect corn and soybean prices. One will be the Annual Prospective Plantings. This report will tell how many acres of corn and soybeans could be planted based on farmer surveys. Grain markets could be very volatile as corn and soybeans are battling for acres, and this battle could get aggressive after the report is released. Seed sales experts are predicting 93+ million acres of corn and almost 89 million acres of soybeans. The second report is the Quarterly Grain Stocks. This gives grain traders an idea of how many bushels of corn and soybeans are available to purchase. If the grain stocks are tighter than expected, grain prices will skyrocket. These two reports could have a major impact on grain prices, and grain prices are highly correlated to land prices.

Last week the USDA announced it has expanded direct financial assistance for commodity producers with the intent to expedite payments totaling more than $4.5 billion, impacting more than 560,000 producers through Pandemic Assistance for Producers. This program will utilize discretionary funding from the last COVID-19 stimulus package of 2020, passed by Congress on December 21, and will equate to another $20 per eligible acre of crop as defined in the second Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. This additional income to farmers and landowners provides more dollars to flow towards buying land and farm machinery. Payments will start going out in April.

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