NCREIF Cornbelt Farmland Appreciation Goes Negative in 2024

A regional exception to a positive rowcrop farmland appreciation rate in 2024 is the Cornbelt, which finished 2024 with a slight loss of year-on-year value of -0.5%. In the current downturn (correction?) in appreciation rates the Cornbelt is the only region in the group we are covering to have gone negative. That said, it also had the highest high in the recent run up, peeking at 21.0% in 2022.

Contrary to many investors’ perception of the Cornbelt as something of the US bond of farmland investment regions in terms of risk, it actually has had by far the most volatile returns within the NCREIF regions. We’ll be looking at regional volatility of returns in a future post.

Are the recent negative returns in the Cornbelt a forebearer of corrective negatives in other regions? And how low and for how long might they stay there? We will be looking at that as well.