Farmland Values And Credit Conditions

Agricultural land values for the Seventh Federal Reserve District shot up 23 percent in the first quarter of 2022 from a year ago, continuing the recent streak of sharp year-overyear gains. Furthermore, “good” farmland values in the District increased 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, according to the survey responses of 136 District agricultural bankers. Annual cash rental rates for District farmland rose 11 percent in 2022, surpassing last year’s gain of 4 percent. With demand to purchase agricultural land up yet again this year, there was a larger amount of farmland for sale in the three- to six-month period ending with March 2022 than in the same period ending with March 2021. In addition, the number of farms and the amount of acreage sold were up during the winter and early spring of 2022 compared with a year earlier. Given these upward trends, 48 percent of the responding bankers forecasted District farmland values to be higher during the second quarter of 2022, 51 percent forecasted them to be stable, and only 1 percent forecasted them to be lower. Agricultural credit conditions improved in the District during the first quarter of 2022. Repayment rates for nonreal-estate farm loans were higher in the January through March period of 2022 compared with a year ago, and the renewals and extensions of these loans were lower. The availability of funds for agricultural borrowing in the first quarter of 2022 expanded from a year earlier, whereas demand for non-real-estate loans contracted. At 65.0 percent, the average loan-to-deposit ratio in the first quarter of 2022 was at its lowest level since the second quarter of 2013. On net, the amount of collateral required by banks across the District changed very little from a year ago. Although average nominal interest rates on farm loans moved up to end the first quarter of 2022 at their highest levels since 2020, average farm interest rates moved down in real terms.