As expected, rental rates for farmland continue to rise across North Dakota, with many counties in the state seeing an increase of roughly 5 to 10 percent from a year ago.
The North Dakota field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has released its 2012 County Rents & Values. The widely watched report is used by some farmers and landlords to help determine rental agreements.
USDA surveyed about 2,150 North Dakota agricultural producers in late January.
An Agweek cover story last fall and a subsequent Agweek article early this year found that rental rates were rising rapidly. Rates have been increasing across the state for several years, reflecting the generally strong crop prices that farmers have enjoyed since 2007.
Here's a sampling of what the newly released USDA survey found:
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Richland County, in southeastern North Dakota, had an average rental rate of $114.20 per acre for nonirrigated farmland this year, the highest such rate in the state. The 2012 rate is 9.6 percent higher than the county's average rental rate of $104.20 last year.
Richland County had the state's highest rental rate for nonirrigated this year: $175 per acre.
Percentage increases were particularly strong in the south-central part of the state. The average rate in Emmons County was $55.40 per acre of nonirrigated farmland, an increase of 15 percent from the $48.10 per acre last year.
Renville County, in northwestern North Dakota, where wet conditions in 2011 prevented many fields from being planted, saw only a marginal increase in rental rates. The average rental rate for nonirrigated farmland was $45.80 per acre, up from $45.50 per acre a year ago.
The average rental rate for nonirrigated farmland in Bowman County, in southwestern North Dakota was $33.30 this year, up 4.7 percent from the $31.80 per acre a year ago.
The USDA report can be found online by Clicking here . Click on "county rents and values" beneath the "North Dakota publications" box at the bottom on the page.
State-level estimates will be released in a different report Aug 3.
Read more about North Dakota county cropland rental rates in the April 9 issue of Agweek.
