USDA released their Land Values Summary last week showing farmland values across the Corn Belt continued to show steady appreciation, though at a more moderate pace compared to the rapid gains of prior years.
“The sixth consecutive year of increasing values across the board, but maybe a bit of a slowing in terms of that increase. We saw a little bit of a slowdown in those increases last year.
Lance Honig of the National Agricultural Statistics Service explains what’s in the report.
“We’re talking about three major categories: all land and buildings, cropland, and pasture, and again increases across the board in all three categories. A little bit slower than what we’ve seen in some of the recent years.”
Honig says cash rents are similar to a year ago.
“Taking a look at the cash rents, what we’re talking about here is the average cash rent rate that was paid by producers for land that they rented on their operations, and there we saw pretty slow changes happening there. In fact, very similar to what we saw last year. Last year’s values were very similar to what we saw the year before, and so this is really two consecutive years of pretty steady cash rental rates. Looking at cropland, down just $1 an acre from last year. That sits at $160 per acre on average. Irrigated cropland rates unchanged from last year; non-irrigated cropland rates down $1. Actually, did see an increase in the average pasture cash rental rates up $1 an acre to $16.50 per acre.”
Indiana cropland averaged $9,150 per acre, up 3.4% from 2025.
USDA estimates for Indiana cropland cash rent to continue to hover around the $235–$245 per acre average. By comparison, university field surveys like Purdue’s place top-quality land around $318/acre, average-quality around $264/acre, and poor-quality around $207/acre
