Farmland Values And Credit Conditions

There was an annual increase of 22 percent in the Seventh Federal Reserve District’s agricultural land values in 2021—the largest such rise over the past decade. In addition, values for “good” farmland in the District gained 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021 from the third quarter, according to 147 agricultural bankers who responded to the January survey. Fifty-six percent of the survey respondents expected farmland values to go up during the January through March period of 2022, 1 percent expected them to go down, and 43 percent expected them to remain the same. District agricultural credit conditions during the fourth quarter of 2021 continued to show signs of improvement. Only 0.8 percent of agricultural borrowers were not likely to qualify for operating credit at the survey respondents’ banks in 2022 after qualifying in the previous year (matching the survey’s record low, reached in 2012). In the final quarter of 2021, repayment rates for non-real-estate farm loans were again higher than a year ago, plus loan renewals and extensions were lower than a year ago. Both of these indicators of farm credit conditions were better than a year earlier in each of the five most recent quarters. That said, non-real-estate farm loan demand relative to a year ago was lower for a sixth consecutive quarter. For ten quarters in a row, there have been more funds available for lending than in the same quarter the prior year at survey respondents’ banks. In line with these trends, the average loan-to-deposit ratio for the District retreated to 67.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021—its lowest reading since the first quarter of 2014. At the end of 2021, the District’s average nominal interest rates on farm operating, feeder cattle, and farm real estate loans were still very close to their respective all-time lows; yet real interest rates on them had dropped noticeably into negative territory.