Ames, Iowa - For the sixth straight year, Iowa farmland values hit record levels in 2008, according to a widely watched Iowa State University survey released earlier this month.

ISU economics professor Michael Duffy noted ISU's most recent year-to-year survey of 479 real estate brokers, ag lenders and others familiar with farmland concluded on Novemer 1 of this year. The 2008 survey found the average statewide per-acre price reach $4,468 up 14.3%, or $560 from the previous year. That is the second-highest dollar increase recorded in the 67 years the university has conducted the survey, trailing only the $704 per-acre increasein 2007, when average values shot up 22%.

This year's survey offers fresh evidence that Northwest Iowa is home ot some of the state's richest farmland. Of the nine crop reporting districts, the 12 county-area in the extreme northwest tier reported the highest average value of $5,395 per acre, up 14.8% from the previous year. Included in this district are the counties of Lyon, Osceola, Sioux, O'Brien, Plymouth, and Cherokee. For the first time, three counties had average per-acre prices above $6,000, two of which are O'Brien and Sioux Counties.

According to a LeMars-based auctioneer who completed the ISU survey, a tract of land in Plymouth County sold for $8,100 per acre earlier this fall. Auctions elsewhere in the region brought even higher prices, with a number going for more than $10,000 per acre, and two tracts in Lyon County near Inwood bringing more than $11,000 per acre.

Despite the economic downturn, the market remains "pretty darn strong." The worldwide demand for Iowa corn and soybeans is reaching phenomenal proportions. Duffy said current conditions do not resemble the run-up of land values that contributed to the 1980's farm crisis. in the early 1970's, annual price increases exceeded 30%. As prices plummeted, many farmers, who borrowed heavily to buy land, were forced out of business. Today, according to the ISU survey, 75% of Iowa farmland is debt free.