May 26, 2010

I Would Urge Anyone To Buy A Farm

I would urge anyone to buy a farm. Farming has been a horrible business for 30 years, so there's fewer farmers and supply is under duress. At the same time all of Asia is becoming more prosperous, so you have demand going up when supply is under pressure.

in Sydney Morning Herald

by Jimrogersblogspot

Optimism is back in farmland !!!!

COLUMBIA CITY, IN--(Marketwire - December 11, 2009) - The December 9 auction of 506 acres southwest of Frankfort, Ind., drew a capacity crowd of bidders, resulting in the sale of the land for $3,345,000, according to Rex Schrader, president of Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company.
"The optimism is back in the market, especially for higher quality land. The results of this sale confirm what we have seen over the last 90 days in other sales of high-quality land," said Schrader after the sale, which included 486 acres of prime Indiana farmland, bringing prices ranging as high as $7,000 per acre. "Land in the top one-third in terms of quality is up a good 10 percent during this quarter, and we are seeing new records for land prices in many counties," he said.
The 506 acres sold to a combination of five different buyers:
-- Three acres with buildings for $140,000;
-- 217 acres for $1,410,000 ($6,498 per acre);
-- 118 acres for $800,000 ($6,780 per acre);
-- 138 acres for $785,000 ($5,588 per acre); and
-- 30 acres for $210,000 ($7,000 per acre).

The auction was packed with buyers, several bidding on all the land and many buyers bidding on various combinations of tracts and single tracts. "We had lots of interest from investors from at least six different states. The bidding action between the investors and the farmers was very competitive, with farmers ultimately buying most of the land," said sale manager Bill Haworth.
Having sold farmland throughout the United States -- including more than 3,000 acres in the past 15 months in the Clinton County, Ind., area alone -- Schrader said "the evidence of the uptrend in the market for good crop land today is very clear."
Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company, based in Columbia City, Ind., is one of the nation's largest auctioneers of agricultural land. The company's auction calendar and results are available at www.schraderauction.com. Other Schrader releases.
For more information:
Rex Schrader800-451-2709
Carl Carter205-823-3273

Strong Land Auctions Reported

Strong Land Auctions Reported
by "Your Precious Land" Mike Walsten
Here's an item I ran in the current issue of LandOwner that talks about some of the surprising strong sales seen in the land market recently. That item starts below. Meanwhile, here is a press release from Schrader Real Estate & Auction Company, Inc., Columbia City, Ind., that highlights a recent strong auction near Frankfort, Indiana.
This is the story that ran in the December 10 issue of LandOwner:
Strong Sales Seen At Recent Midwest Auctions
Dynamic. Strong — for better quality ground. Variable. Surprising. Yes — because after following the constant negative downbeat of the financial and farm media, you’re surprised when you hear a east-Central Illinois farm sold for $7,800 an acre in less than 30 minutes. These are our impressions after spending several days following recent auctions from Indiana to eastern Colorado. Here are some examples:
•$7,500 an acre in Knox County near Galesburg in western Illinois.
•$7,675 in northwest Iowa.
•$5,000 to $6,000 at several sales in Indiana.
•$8,700 near Bushnell in western Illinois.
•$3,800 in Atchinson County, Missouri.
•$5,770 in southwest Iowa.
•$5,000 in south central Minnesota.
•$2,900, irrigated land in western Nebraska.
•$2,400 in central South Dakota.
•$5,990 in Renville County, Minnesota.
•$1,820, combination irrigated and dryland cropland in northwestern Colorado.
•$7,600 and $7,800, Coles County, Illinois.
•$3,740 in Sedgwick County in central Kansas.
•$4,590 in Brown County, Minnesota.
•$5,850 to $6,800 for several sales in Hamilton, Hancock and Humboldt counties in Iowa.
•$7,500 to $7,600, Hancock County, Illinois.
•$5,100, irrigated, Reno County, Kansas.
•$4,600-$5,800, Redwood County, Minnesota.
•$5,100-$8,100 in Holt County, Missouri.
•$6,025 in Madison County, Iowa.
We know not all sales have been this strong. There have been several “no sales” at auctions, too. In those cases, the common denominator is lower quality soils and a low percentage of tillable acres versus gross acres.

Remember..

Remember what Scarlet's father told her, "Land, its the only thing that lasts."

International

(04/20/2009) The government of Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) has offered 25 million acres (10 million hectares) of land to South African farmers in an effort to improve the central African nation's food security, reports Reuters. The area is nearly twice the amount of arable land in South Africa.
Spurred on by the global food crisis, nations in the Middle-east and Asia have begun purchasing agricultural land abroad in order to make-up for a lack of arable land at home. Due to water shortages across the region, Middle-eastern nations like Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have turned largely to Africa for thousands upon thousands of hectares of land, while massive populations and dwindling land has led India, South Korea, and China to also buy up farmland overseas. Over two-and-half million hectares in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; half a million hectares in Tanzania; and a quarter of a million hectares in Libya.

August 4, 2009

"Farmland Is Going To Be One Of The Best Investments Of Our Time"
"I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time" Jim Rogers in ContrarianProfits.

Jim Rogers on farm & agri-commodities

By Jim Rogers Blog.

June 15, 2009
Buy Farmland. The Best Investment Of Our Lifetime.
"I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet.

June 8, 2009
Why Agriculture Commodities Are The Best Place To Invest
The world has been consuming more than it produced. Food inventories are at a multi-decade low. And we haven't had any bad weather. We had isolated cases of droughts and things. That may never happen again. But if it does, the prices of food would go through the roof. If there is climate change taking place, the best way to participate is through agriculture or through agriculture products. There are many positive things happening. Right now, there is a shortage of everything in agriculture — seeds, fertilisers, tractors, tractor tyres. We have a shortage of farmers because farming has been a horrible business for the past 30 years.

April 15, 2009
Agriculture Commodities
The prices historically are still very depressed, compared with most other commodities. I bought all commodities recently, but I probably bought more agriculture than anything else.

March 3, 2009
Buying Brazilian and Canadian Farmland - CNBC, March, 3 2009
I am buying greenfield land in Brazil and existing farms in Canada and starting to farm it. The funds are clearing the land, fertilizing it, irrigating it and hiring farmers and some day will probably sell the land but that is a remote prospect.

February 28, 2009
Farming, Real Assets. no more Finance and Paper Money
I am the world worst market timer. I just try to be long things that are going to do better than the things that I am short on. By the way the best sector in the world that I know right now is probably agriculture. Everybody should become a farmer. Farming is going to be one of the greatest industries of our time for the next 20 to 30 years.

September 2, 2008
Asked whether the bull run in agriculture-based commodities will be much shorter than metal-based commodities, Rogers said: “With agri commodities, the world is facing a new problem – the inventory of agri-based food products is currently the lowest seen in over 50 to 60 years.“The world has never experienced such a situation. Even in the 1970 when we had a big bull market in agriculture products, the world still had a high food inventory. This time around, we don’t.”