Rising 5 percent in the third quarter 2023 from a year ago, agricultural land values for the Seventh Federal Reserve District (District) of Chicago slowed their year-over-year increases (this was the smallest such gain in three years). Also, values for “good” farmland in the District overall were 1 percent higher in the third quarter of 2023 than in the second quarter, according to the respondents from 137 banks who completed the Oct. 1 survey. While 72 percent of the survey respondents anticipated District farmland values to be stable during the fourth quarter of 2023, 13 percent anticipated them to move up again in the final quarter of this year, and 15 percent anticipated them to move down.
The District’s agricultural credit conditions were weaker in the third quarter of 2023 than a year earlier, as repayment rates for non-real estate farm loans were no longer higher relative to the same quarter of the previous year. Moreover, renewals and extensions of such loans we