Are farm values and rates really off, or is it just because of the shutdown?

Coronavirus shutdowns. Potential for $2.75 corn. These are interesting times indeed!

What am I talking about? Predictions for $2.75 corn this fall. This reality would have to adjust most cash rents by at least $30 an acre, as we roughly predict $500 per acre production costs, and even at 200 bushel corn, that only leaves $50!!

Secondly, the Covid-19 shutdowns left the farmland market stopped dead in its tracts about 60 days prior to the usual slowdown due to farms being leased and planted for the growing season.

Are values really off, or was it just because of the shutdown? We will not have the answer to that until the fall sale season gets underway. But with $3 corn, and piles of corn on the ground, you can make a pretty good guess what that answer might be.

I would like to be more positive, and there might be room for that, but it will require some supply problems somewhere this growing season to see anything close to that.

#covid19 #farming #agriculture