Insights from Schrader President RD Schrader's March 2026 annual farmland market presentation, examining the forces shaping farmland values, farm incomes, and buyer behavior through 2026.
Series started April 14, 2026
At current prices it takes roughly two ounces of gold to buy an acre of prime Midwest farmland — the lowest ratio in the forty-year history of the data. The last time the number was this low was the depths of the 1980s farm crisis. This time, farmland did not collapse. Gold simply ran that far, that fast. Read the details behind this as explained by RD Schrader in Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation.
In Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation, RD Schrader brought forth how one-third of American farmland landlords are 75 years of age or older. The next decade will move more acres through estates than any period since the 1980s. How those transfers are handled — deliberately or by default — will determine whether family wealth compounds or quietly erodes.
From late 2008 through late 2022, the federal funds rate sat near zero for roughly fifteen years. A generation of farm operators — many now between 30 and 45 — built their financial instincts in that environment. Those conditions are likely not returning, and the implications for how farmland is valued have only begun to be absorbed as RD Schrader explains in Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation.
In Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation, RD Schrader highlighted American farm income has historically split roughly 50/50 between crops and livestock. That pattern has changed. Cattle are at nine-year-high placements, plant-based meat companies are collapsing, and Corn Belt crop margins are at fifteen-year lows. The implications reach well beyond the feedlot — they reach the land market.
American farmers live under the trade-policy spotlight as exporters. They live there equally as importers. RD Schrader concluded Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation with the the fact that more than half of global phosphate production and two-thirds of potash production originate in China, Russia, and Belarus. That concentration has real consequences for input costs, crop margins, and farmland values.
On January 12, 2026, the USDA annual crop report delivered the largest bearish surprise in the history of the series. U.S. corn production hit 17 billion bushels. Ending stocks jumped more than 20 percent above prior-year usage. That is the supply story. The demand story — three engines building simultaneously — is what makes 2026 different from every other surplus year. RD Schrader talked through these three engines in Schrader's 2026 annual market presentation.
Real Wisconsin farmland sales data reveals $7,238/acre average—up 70.5% since 2020 based on what buyers actually paid, not opinions.
