Fertile Ground for Investors

The Great Recession served as a pivotal moment for the perception of farmland as an attractive asset class. While previous decades, such as the 1970s and 1980s, held significance, it was the financial crisis of the late 2000s that sparked investor interest in agricultural land. Steve Bruere, president of Peoples Company, highlights how the turmoil in various markets during the recession prompted investors to seek alternative avenues for capital investment, with farmland emerging as a stable option. Bruere, drawing from his personal experience growing up on a farm, notes that the recession, coupled with dissatisfaction with stock market returns, shifted perceptions of farmland among individuals previously unfamiliar with its potential. In this interview, Bruere discusses the recent white paper that Peoples Company and Ailie Elmore of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released. "The Evolution of Farmland as an Institutional Asset" examines the trajectory of farmland values over the past fifty years and the events that influenced them.