Peoples Perspective

Soil productivity indexes are among the most valuable tools for classifying farmland. These indexes offer a consistent way to measure agricultural land. Soil types and characteristics can vary significantly not just from one region to another, but between neighboring properties.

This week, President Donald Trump announced a sweeping $750 billion energy agreement with the European Union, outlining decades-long purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other U.S. fossil fuel exports.

In this edition of the Landowner Insights series, Dr. Dave Muth of Peoples Company Capital Markets is joined by Liz Krause, CPA and Senior Manager at MHCS; Paul Neiffer, CPA and primary author of the FarmCPAReport.com blog; and Tyler Bruch, CEO, Founder, and Farmer at Boa Safra Ag, LLC. Together, they discuss the tax benefits of farmland ownership.

For investors with conviction in well-developed agricultural investment strategies, a disciplined approach, and an ability to truly hold for the long-term, the opportunity to assemble a high-quality California farm portfolio of scale has never been better.

As America faces a massive farmland transition, Peoples Company releases a powerful play, video, and guide to help landowners navigate inheritance and preserve their legacy.

While farmland value is primarily driven by land quality, water rights, and production potential, agribusiness assets are valued based on operational efficiency and EBITDA performance, with technology, processing capacity, and supply chain management playing key roles.

I was raised outside Boulder, Colorado, near the mountains but far removed from large-scale production agriculture. Still, I developed a passion for the agricultural industry early on—riding horses and raising livestock on my family’s small acreage.

The appraisal team at Peoples Company was able to track 62 tracts or 5,934 acres sold at public auction in Iowa during June 2025. The average dollar per acre was $11,129, the average dollar per tillable acre was $13,003, and the average dollar per CSR2 was $159.

Peoples Company tracks agricultural auctions across the state of Iowa. From this data, we calculate the average dollar per CSR2 point ($/CSR2) for sales of tracts with greater than 85% tillable land. Additionally, these tracts are largely unimproved or include minimal improvement contribution.

As solar energy expands across rural America, landowners are increasingly receiving enticing offers to lease their land for solar development.