Bigger expenses, same harvest
8:33 p.m. Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Home prices are slumping but farmland prices are hitting record high's. Prices have gone up more than 8 percent from last year, averaging $2,350 per acre according to a recent report from the United States Department of Agriculture. But the high prices aren't good for many local farmers.
"We are feeling the economic pains every day," said second generation farmer Dean Akers.
Akers said he remembers when a cornfield he now farms sold for $1,000 per acre. However, just a few years ago it sold for more than $5,000 per acre. That's bad news for farmers like Akers, who rents the land he farms.
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"People that invest into this property, they want it farmed," Akers said. "Therefore they want a return on their investment, so that drives my cash-rent price that I have to pay up that much more."
Just last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced farmland prices for both crops and pasture have risen to record highs in 2008.
However, Akers says many farmers around Shawnee County are like him.
"They own some ground, but not near as much as they farm," Akers said.
That means the higher land prices are just another bill because everything else farmers use has gone up as well.
"Seed, fertilizer, chemicals, fuel is major," Akers said listing his most costly expenses. "When you think you're gonna make a little more dollars and put them in the bank, it's really not happening. We're just writing bigger checks for everything."
Bigger checks, with the same harvest.
"Anybody can make anything look good on a piece of paper but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it, it's still a tough go," Akers said.
Akers also said there are a lot of family-owned farms in Kansas, but one of the only ways to make money off the high farmland prices is to sell the land.
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