Renting Pasture

[JJT]

Anyone out there rent their pastures out? I have 12 acres of nice pasture currently being "used" by a neighbor with 16 beef cows. The original agreement years ago was a side of beef every year or 2. I've never collected on the beef, (1/2 cow would last me 20 years). Way back when, the farmer used to brush hog the fields once a year, but he hasn't done that since I bought the Kubota. This guy also uses the property of my ajoining neighbors. In fact this hobby farmer has almost no pasture of his own. This guy can afford to pay, he has all the toys, new truck, 4 wheeler, boat, snow machine, etc.

What's a fair rent for 12 acres of decent grass?

 

[Inspector507]

Maybe he can't afford to pay anymore with all those toys /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[cowboydoc]

You can either rent it by the head, by the year, or by the month. If you rent it by the head around here you would pay $5-10 per head depending on how good the pasture is. If you rent by the year figure the average farm rent per acre for your area and then pasture ground usually goes for around 50-75% of that number. If they want to rent by the month figure up cash rent for farm ground and divide that by 12.

In our area farm ground rents for an average of about $150 an acre. Based on this the price per year would be $1800. If you figure half of this you would be at $900 and 75% would be at $1350. Or if you wanted to go by the month and it's good pasture then I would do $150 a month.

 

[rancar]

In upstate New York, I rent out 60 acres of my cropland to a tenant farmer for $30/acre on an annualized basis. Land planted in alfalfa, corn, timothy. Others in my area get a little bit less.

Regards,
Bob Ancar
Cambridge, NY

 

[stmiller2]

The USDA reports average land rental rates in "Agricultural Cash Rents." The average cash rent for pastures in the Northeast was $23/acre in 2001. The average for cropland was $41.5/acre.

 

[cowboydoc]

I think those numbers are grossly wrong. I don't know about the south or east. I do know from the midwest to the west there isn't a place that you can rent ground for much less than a hundred dollars an acre. Certainly the quality of the ground is going to play a HUGE part in it. Do you have that website or where you got those numbers. I wonder if they give a state by state comparison.

 

[cowboydoc]

rancar,
You guys only get $30 an acre for farmground? What are the yields for corn there? I have never heard of such low rates for farmground. Even bad ground around here rents for $100 an acre. The really good ground goes for $200 an acre.

 

[stmiller2]

There is a considerable amount of variation in cash land rents across the country -- the more productive the soil, the higher the rent, all else constant. The USDA reports on land values and rents are available at http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/other/plr-bb/

 

[cowboydoc]

Very interesting report. I had no idea that other parts of the country were that cheap in farm rent. Thanks for the info. Makes it pretty easy to figure out pasture rent with that report.

Another aside is that horse people absolutely get screwed with regards to pasture rent! If you have cattle they will rent you the ground at $5-10 a head but if you have horses they want $30-50 a head, even though the two eat about the same. Same with hay. If you are buying for cattle it's one price and if you're a horse buyer then it's another price. Do any of you other guys find the same thing?

 

[stmiller2]

Keep in mind that the reported cash rents (and land values) are averages. There can be considerable variation within a particular state.