Farmland Has Another Strong Year, Up 13% In 2014

Last year’s agricultural assets returned a healthy 12.63%, according to the NCREIF Farmland Index.  While it is certainly not as impressive as 2013’s farmland annual returns of 20.93%, the 2014 return was well within the long term average annual return of 12.89%, as can be seen over the last 20 years. This compares to the US stock market returns for 2014: Dow Jones rallied 8.16%, S&P 500 saw return of 11.81%, and the Nasdaq rallied 13.94%.  As you can see, farmland nearly outperformed all major US equity indices, but fell just short to the Nasdaq’s annual return.  Still, it is an impressive feat and continuation of farmland’s continued high returns.