The 10 States with the Most Expensive Farmland

Written by Ricky Nave in Money Maps & Rankings,Real Estate

A blueberry farm in New Jersey

The USDA tracks the average value of U.S. farmland per acre in each state. This value includes both the property of the land itself as well as any buildings and other agricultural structures on the land. Below are the 10 states with the highest average farmland values as of August 2022.

1. Rhode Island ($17,500 / acre)

Rhode Island takes 49th place for total agricultural exports from the state, but it takes first place for most expensive farm real estate, with an average price of $17,500 per acre.

2. New Jersey ($15,400 / acre)

New Jersey is the 3rd largest producer of cranberries, spinach, bell peppers, and peaches among all U.S. states, and New Jersey farms cost an average of $15,400 per acre.

3. Massachusetts ($15,200 / acre)

Massachusetts has 492,000 acres of farmland that is valued at $15,200 per acre on average. That means the total value of Massachusetts farmland is about $7.5 billion.

4. Connecticut ($13,700 / acre)

Connecticut farms generate about $600 million of revenue per year, and the average value of Connecticut farmland $13,700 per acre.

5. California ($12,000 / acre)

California is the largest agricultural producer of any state, and California farmland costs $12,000 per acre on average.

6. Delaware ($9,800 / acre)

Delaware farms produced about 2.5 times more agricultural revenue than Connecticut farms, despite Delaware being more than twice as small as Connecticut by total land area. That means Delaware is more than 4 times as agriculturally productive on a “per square mile of state” basis as Connecticut is.

7. Maryland ($9,700 / acre)

Despite the large number of government contractors in Maryland, the largest commercial industry in the state is actually agriculture. The states farms generated more than $17 billion of revenue each year, and the average price of farm real estate is $9,700 per acre.

8. Iowa ($9,400 / acre)

Iowa’s farms mainly produce corn, soybeans, and hogs, although cattle is also a big industry, and vineyards are growing in importance.

Iowa farms operate approximately 30.5 million acres of farmland which carries an average value of $9,400 per acre. That implies the total value of Iowa farm real estate is about $287 billion. From that capital base, Iowa farms generated about $35 billion of revenue in 2022 which is just over a 12% average cap rate.

9. Illinois ($8,900 / acre)

Illinois has 27 million acres of actively operated farmland which carries an average value of $8,900 per acre. Illinois’ biggest crop is corn.

10. Indiana ($8,000 / acre)

Indiana has about 14.8 million acres of actively operated farmland which carries an average value of $8,000 per acre. Like Iowa and Illinois, corn is the state’s biggest crop, followed by soybeans.

I also wrote an article on the 5 states with the CHEAPEST farmland.

Ricky Nave

In college, Ricky studied physics & math, won a prestigious research competition hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, started several small businesses including an energy chewing gum business and a computer repair business, and graduated with a thesis in algebraic topology. After graduating, Ricky attended grad school at Duke University in the mathematics PhD program where he worked on quantum algorithms & non-Euclidean geometry models for flexible proteins. He also worked in cybersecurity at Los Alamos during this time before eventually dropping out of grad school to join a startup working on formal semantic modeling for legal documents. Finally, he left that startup to start his own in the finance & crypto space. Now, he helps entrepreneurs pay less capital gains tax.

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