Tillable land is the most valuable land-use type in comparison with the other rural land uses of timber, pasture, and water. In large-scale, row-crop production areas of the mid-west, high-quality, tillable land sales have achieved some incredible record-setting prices in the last decade. With commodity prices of corn, beans, and wheat declining, eventually the prices farmers were willing to pay for cash-rent and buyers, both farmers and investors, were willing to pay per acre to purchase, have fallen since that peak. Nonetheless, tillable land is a valuable component of rural land living and can be a wonderful complement to recreational ground buyers.

Most all-tillable tracts that come up for sale in an area are usually quickly consumed by a neighboring or nearby farmer with intentions of expansion. But recreational and hunting land buyers do quite often have opportunities at properties that feature a decent percentage in the overall acreage in productive tillable farmland. A few glaring benefits of having part of your hunting land in production ag is the cash-rent income it derives. As mentioned earlier the heyday of top rental rates is behind us (for now) but one can still receive 100.00 to 250.00 dollars per acre for an annual rent income depending on the state, location and soil productivity. An annual rent check from your farmer can certainly help with property taxes, annual mortgage payments or even to put back into land improvement projects.

Secondly, ag fields make wonderful food sources for your resident deer herd and can allow bucks to reach peak potential with the nutrition they provide. Consequently, patterns emerge from deer moving to the fields for foraging in the evenings and returning to bedding areas in the morning allowing you to put yourself in ideal locations for intercepting them. The edges that are created where fields meet the woods provide fantastic diversities of plants and are ideal habitats for many other game species as well. Open fields that have historically been farmed are also a blank slate to new owners who desire to create their own habitat improvements.

Tree plantings, warm-season grasses, pollinators, food plots, etc. can all be introduced in a plan to improve the attraction and holding ability of the property. Many of these improvements could qualify for a Conservation Reserve Program and thus could allow the landowner to enjoy cost-sharing expenses to install, and even the benefit of annual payments if signed up in a contract within the CRP program. Lastly, access to other areas of your property is enhanced when you have field edges to travel to and from. Tillable land can be a very valuable component of your overall land makeup!