Iowa Land Auction Prices, March 12-18, 2022

Sioux County tops the market again this week with $25,500/acre, $25,200/acre, and $22,300/acre sales. Lyon County gets honorable mention at $19,000/acre. Shout out goes to Ringgold County with a very strong cash rent auction coming in at $420/acre on 81.56 crop acres with CSR2 of 50.6 in Grand River Bottom, west of Redding. This equates to $8.30/CSR2 point. Per the 2021 ISU Cash Rent Survey, the average cash rent for Ringgold County for high-quality cropland is $235/acre, with an average row crop CSR2 index of 76, equating to $3.09/CSR2 point.

Ukraine, “Europe’s Breadbasket,” is the world’s seventh-largest producer and fourth-largest exporter of corn, responsible for 13% of global exports in the 2020/21 growing year. The crop is predominantly grown in the northern half of the country, with a concentration in the northeast, (including Chernihivska, Sumska, and Poltavska, visible on the map below) where approximately 35% of the country’s corn is grown.

Ukraine exported more than $5.8 billion in corn to the world in 2021. China ($1.9 billion) and the EU-27 ($1.8 billion) were the top two destinations for Ukrainian corn, accounting for more than 60% of corn exports. Ukrainian corn growers are trade dependent; over the 17/18 – 20/21 trade years an incredible 80% of Ukraine’s corn production was exported. Despite similar growing seasons, Ukrainian corn is exported primarily between November and May, while U.S. corn exports are strongest between March and June. For the global market that means that relatively large stocks of trade year 21/22 Ukrainian corn remain stuck in-country after the closure of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

The Chinese and European markets are as reliant on Ukrainian corn imports as Ukrainian corn farmers are on those export markets. In 2019, the EU-27 imported $4.6 billion in corn from the world, 63% of which was sourced from Ukraine. Brazil was a distant second, supplying 20% of the EU’s corn market. In 2021, China imported nearly $8 billion in corn from the world. The U.S. was China’s largest supplier in 2021 with 70% of the market, but Ukraine was still a significant supplier. China imported 29% of its corn crop from Ukraine in 2021, valued at more than $2.4 billion. In recent years, Ukraine commanded a larger share of China’s corn imports. Over the 2016-2019 period, Ukraine’s market share averaged 77%. 

I highly recommend listening to this podcast by Rob Sharkey, the Shark Farmer, who interviewed Kees Huizinga, a Ukrainian farmer. This is really good information, and so much that I listened to it twice.

SHARKFARMER PODCAST - 302 KEES HUIZINGA UKRAINIAN FARMER 03.08.22

*Source for World Corn Exports and Ukraine Corn Production:  American Farm Bureau Federation, “Ukraine, Russia, Volatile Ag Markets” – Market Intel, March 16, 2022

“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”

Jim “the Land Talker”

Jim Rothermich, MAI, ARA, ALC
Iowa Appraisal
theLandTalker@iowaappraisal.com ∣  @theLandTalker

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