Tag Archives: climate-change
Farmland Values Still Climbing, But Pace Slows
High quality farmland is still in demand, and buyers are competing for top acres that are currently in short supply. More about: Viewer Photo Galleries, Energy Issues, Crop Insurance, Immigration Issues, Crop Reports, Lygus, PBWs, Irrigation Systems, Climate Change, Biotechnology, Pesticide Regulation An accelerated farmland sell-off at the end of 2012 has led to continued low supplies of premium quality property, according to Farmers National Company, the largest farmland and ranchland real estate company in the country. Last year’s rush, prompted by economic uncertainty and tax law changes, continues to have an impact into 2013. High quality land is still in demand, and buyers are competing for top acres that are currently in short supply. Competition for land has kept values strong, averaging 20 percent higher values over comparable land in 2012. Much of the continued rise is due to auction activity driving sales prices as purchasers vie for parcels of land. Mid- to high-quality properties are still seeing such rises in value, while lower quality land values are staying steady. “Values are still going up, but the pace has slowed overall,” said Derrick Volchoff, ALC, vice president of real estate operations at Farmers National Company. “Many transactions for high quality land are being sold via auction, which drives prices through competitive situations.” Auctions today have turned very competitive with bidding wars becoming the norm for high quality land sales. Areas of the country that normally do not run auctions, such as the Delta region, are now seeing them on a regular basis, according to Volchoff. “Despite an overall moderation in the number of sales transactions since the end of last year, there has been noticeable growth in the size of parcels being sold per purchase,” said Volchoff. Moving into the third quarter of 2013, Farmers National Company expects the number of transactions being closed to increase, based on activity seen in the past 60 days. “During the first two quarters of 2013, there has been a hiccup in activity based on the surge at 2012 year-end,” said Volchoff. “However, the trend seems to be shifting upward again and transaction numbers for the balance of the year should remain relatively steady.” Investors are sticking with land as a safe, long-term investment while farmers are putting cash from past yearly profits back into operations. Built up cash reserves for farmers are prompting farm operators to buy premium land when it becomes available to add to their inventory and to accommodate the return of younger family members to farms. For both groups, economic uncertainty is still driving purchase decisions. Farmers are looking for premium land on which to expand, while investors may purchase properties based on price and projected return on investments. “Even with recent drops in crop size for farmers, profits are still at a level higher than in 2010,” said Volchoff. “Farm debt is still low in relative historical terms.” According to Volchoff, several issues in the U.S., such as healthcare and interest rates are likely to impact economic trends and thus land inventory levels and sales activity once they are resolved. The direction of market and political issues will likely shape the rest of 2013. As the housing market improves, developers will likely begin to buy land for development. This could trigger more 1031 tax deferred exchanges pushing new money into the market. Farmers National Company, an employee-owned company, is the nation’s leading agricultural real estate and farm and ranch management company. The company has sold over 3,500 farms and more than $2.0 billion of real estate during the last five years. Farmers National Company currently manages more than 4,700 farms in 24 states. Additional services provided by the company include auctions, appraisals, insurance, consultation services, oil and gas management, lake management and a national hunting lease program. For more information on land listings in your region, visit the Farmers National Company website at www.FarmersNational.com. Continue reading
Good Quality UK Farmland Growing In Value
Monday, June 17, 2013 Western Daily Press Top-quality farmland could be costing £20,000 an acre within the next seven years, according to a leading consultant. But while James Brooke, a partner in land agents Bidwells, was referring to top-grade arable land, the rich pastures of the West Country, famous for all-year-round grass, might not be far behind. James Brooke said the ongoing rise in land values, particularly for Grade One land, would continue, and could hit £20,000 by the year 2020 Mr Brooke was speaking at the major national arable event, Cereals 2013, in Lincolnshire. He said the ongoing rise in land values, particularly for Grade One land, would continue, and could hit £20,000 by the year 2020. The current average price is just under £7,000. Demand for land was being driven by an ever-increasing world population that needed to be fed, he said. That demand for good agricultural land would continue to grow. “There is no indicator as to why the current trajectory of land-price travel should fall. I see no reason as to why £20,000 per acre should not be achievable.” He urged farmers to work within reasonable budgets and not over-extend their borrowings. Farmers seeking to expand would want to purchase more land before prices increased much higher, but he said they should be inventive when drawing up plans for future expansion. Mr Brooke said land that was adaptable to produce different crops and also to withstand climate change would be particularly sought after in the future. “There is a need for good quality land in good areas with good irrigation and drainage. We need to be able to grow crops which can adapt to climate change,” he stressed. British farmland was attractive to overseas buyers, Mr Brooke added. “So long as we have a fairly benign tax regime, we shall be seen as attractive to investors.” But in the short term, the market was being stretched by a lack of owners wishing to sell – possibly because of land being handed down from generation to generation without attracting Inheritance Tax, he said. Currently the West Country is the most active region for farm sales, according to estate agents Smiths Gore. Its Taunton office reports over 50 per cent more land was marketed nationally this spring compared with 2012, in what is traditionally the busiest period for farmland market activity. But as 2012 had the least land marketed on record, the amount for sale remains very low and will not satisfy demand, explained specialist agent Simon Derby. “Although the land marketed was a considerable increase compared with last year, we do not expect there to be much more land sold over the whole year compared with last,” he said. Smiths Gore’s analysis shows that up to a quarter of all the land marketed throughout the year was advertised in April and the first half of May. Read more: http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Good-quality-UK-farmland-growing-value/story-19307832- detail/story.html#ixzz2Wx2541J7 Continue reading
UN Carbon Market Health Depends On Global Ambition – JI Chair
20 June 2013, 3:49 pm By John Parnell – See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/…h.60MVdq16.dpuf Fixing carbon markets and mechanisms will do nothing to reduce emissions without ambitious climate policies from governments a senior climate diplomat has warned. Derrick Oderson, chair of the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC), said fixing the Joint Implementation (JI) programme was not the real long term goal. “The JI will be put to good use only when countries do what’s needed with respect to commitments to reduce. This is an extremely urgent matter, not to save the JI, but to avoid calamity,” he told RTCC in an emailed interview. The JI, part of the Kyoto Protocol, allows industrialised nations to invest in low carbon projects in economies in transition. Low carbon prices, partly a result of low greenhouse gas reduction targets, have damaged the scheme’s health. Oderson has been overseeing a review of the JI to get it back on its feet and is confident it will have a role to play when a new, global treaty replaces Kyoto in 2020. Read the full interview with Oderson below: Derrick Oderson, chair of the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (Source: UNFCCC) What effect has the new extended but streamlined Kyoto Protocol had on the JI in the 6 months since Doha finished? Agreeing a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol was a key success of Doha. In the six months since COP 18, the JI Supervisory Committee has been working to fine-tune its recommendations to the Parties on how to improve the JI for a stronger future. This JISC is hopeful that these recommendations will be adopted in Warsaw at the end of the year. That said, without increased ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mechanisms like JI have a limited role. With ambitious targets, mechanisms like JI become indispensable. It’s as simple as that. Low carbon prices and imbalances in supply and demand are being addressed in carbon markets, what is the best course of action in your opinion to address low prices in offset mechanisms? Again, countries need to increase their level of ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If countries committed to the level of abatement that is required to address climate change, then demand for tools like JI – and the clean development mechanism, and other mechanisms and approaches – would be immediate and substantial. Given the types of projects that JI invests in, energy efficiency for example, do you think it can argue more than others that participation has economic advantages? I think the strength of JI is that it can be used by countries to focus investment on whatever sector makes sense. However, the mechanism’s value is tied to countries’ efforts to reduce emissions. With prices for units so low, and emission reduction ambition well below what is needed to address climate change, the incentive is just not there. How important is ambitious climate action by governments in making tools like the JI effective? JI will be put to good use only when countries do what’s needed with respect to commitments to reduce. This is an extremely urgent matter, not to save the JI, but to avoid calamity. The JI exists, above all, as a mechanism to support least-cost options for climate change mitigation. Climate change is not going away. It is the JISC’s job to ensure that JI is there for countries when they do turn to reach for it. With the benefit of hindsight, what would change about the JI if you could redesign it? Joint implementation is a fully functioning tool that countries took a great deal of trouble to create. JI has shown that it works, but it has also shown that it could be improved. The JISC has invested a lot of effort into developing recommendations to do just that. The key feature of our recommendations is creating a single track for the oversight of JI projects, administered by an international body. Only then will people have the level of comfort in the mechanism that is required, with respect to the reliability of oversight and the quality of the emission reductions produced. The recommendations also include creating an aligned or unified accreditation process with the CDM, an appeals procedure and clear additionality requirements amongst other things. The full recommendations are on the UNFCCC website (JISC 30, Annex 1). How do you see the future of the JI in the new climate regime? National governments and the private sector see value in the JI mechanism. It works, helping countries to focus and incentivize investment. Parties could quite easily agree to the needed improvements in JI – these have already been before them for consideration – and they could (and should) come up with the bridging decisions that would carry JI to the next phase of international action. The challenge in coming up with recommendations for the future has been to devise a mechanism that has the benefits of flexibility and strong national involvement, but which can ensure a healthy, useful measure of broad, independent oversight. The JISC thinks it has done this in its recommendations for revisions to the JI guidelines. Continue reading
