(INDIANAPOLIS - AP) Purdue University says Indiana's farmland prices soared nearly 20 percent in the past year. That's the biggest such increase in three decades.
Purdue says the surge is tied to corn and soybean prices driven higher by the growing demand for biofuels.
Purdue Extension economist Craig Dobbins says the last comparable increase was in 1977, at the tail end of a four-year surge in American grain exports.
Dobbins says there are other factors in the increase in land values aside from the higher prices being commanded by corn and soybeans. They include relatively low long-term interest rates and a limited supply of farmland being offered for sale.
