Land values rising rapidly

BUFFALO — Agricultural land values are rising in Johnson County and across the country, handing local landowners both opportunities and challenges.

“Some of this stuff, we would not have guessed it would have sold at as high a price as it has,” said Byron Geis, a sales associate with Chase Brothers and rancher in Johnson County.

Farm real estate in the United States, a measure of the value of all land and buildings on farms, increased $220 to an average of $3,380 per acre from 2020 to 2021, up 7%, according to the Land Values 2021 Summary from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In W...