As agriculture faces rising costs, tighter margins and increasing competition from non-farm uses, land-use decisions made today will shape whether the next generation of farmers and ranchers can enter, expand and keep working the land needed to support the U.S. farm economy.

Higher values strengthen farm balance sheets and provide landowners with additional equity and collateral, but they also raise the cost of buying, renting and expanding an operation.

Farmers and ranchers who own land will have a stronger balance sheet thanks to increased values, but there are still pros and cons to the cost of farmland going up, says Jim Henry.

It was the dog, stuck atop skyscraping grain silos on Springfield’s northeast side in 2019, that forced Chris Richmond’s hand.