(Radio Iowa) – The price of Iowa farmland has only dropped once in the last seven years and that’s likely because the ownership profile hasn’t changed much. Rabail Chandio oversees the annual I-S-U extension farmland price survey. “Iowa is primarily a market for farmland that is held up by farmers, existing, relocating. Even investors here comprised mostly of farmers, out-of-state farmers who are interested in farmland in Iowa,” Chandio says. She says farmers are in for the long haul.

“Farmland continues to be a very stable, very consistently growing asset, which is why the demand from farmers, the demand from investors, has remained as a top supporting factor for farmland over the last few years,” she says. Chandio says investing in farmland isn’t playing the stock market. “There is very low risk for returns that are pretty much expected, pretty much guaranteed. The returns are low, but they are safe,” she says. Chandio says figures from another survey on farmland ownership show 84 percent of Iowa farmland is owned debt free.

“What we also see in that in that survey is that 66 percent of Iowa farmland is owned by experienced farmers, by late stage farmers, farmers were aged 65 and above,” Chandio says. “So the combination of debt -free ownership and experience is what really helps build up the cash reserves. What really helps keep the strong demand for farmland in the farm sector, even when it’s a loss share even when we are struggling when it comes to income.”

Chandio says the ownership hold on farmland is usually only broken when farmers decides to pass it on to family, or they die. “Overall, retried farmers and estate sales continued to make of the largest categories of sales in Iowa farmland markets. This has been true for quite a long time,” she says. Chandio says she doesn’t see that sales trends changing anytime soon.