Risk and return of heterogenous farmland locations and qualities

Abstract

Using data on farmland values in Indiana and Iowa, this study examines the risk and return characteristics surrounding top, medium, and poor farmland qualities in different locations in these two states. We find that systematic risks of locations/qualities are very low (indistinguishable from 0). In terms of risk-adjusted return, our results show that Indiana farmland has more excess return and higher reward-to-risk ratios than Iowa. Also, adding the quality dimension to the geographic dimension in portfolio selection strategies improved the portfolio reward-to-risk ratio for Indiana but not for Iowa. Interestingly, we found that the average quality farmland has more weight in portfolios relative to top- and poor-quality farmland.