Temporal and Spatial Effects of Wind Turbines on Farmland Values

While wind turbines have been rapidly increasing across the United States, especially in Iowa, empirical research on how they would change the underlying or nearby farmland values is limited. We estimate the impact of wind turbines on farmland prices in various aspects, including their varying effects by time and proximity, based on the hedonic approach. Leveraging the detailed farmland transactions and wind turbines data across Iowa, several findings are observed. First, wind turbines increase the per-acre price of the underlying farmlands by 13.5 percent between 2012 to 2019, while the effect becomes insignificant after 2020. Next, the price of farmlands near wind turbines is estimated not to be affected by the turbines. Last, while the total generation capacity of wind turbines increases the price of underlying farmland, the turbines’ age has no significant impact on farmland prices.