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What is a Fair and Profitable Rental Agreement

David Bau

Summary

Many landlords are not located in the same location as farmland owned and are in desperate need of determining what farmland rental rates are in the area. They come to the University of Minnesota Extension seeking this information. In 2012 started a new program titled “What is a Fair and Profitable Rental Agreement”, working with local educators to provide 20 workshops across Minnesota.
Summary of evaluations concluded: Overall workshops received an average evaluation score of 4.22 on scale of 1-5 with 5 being excellent and one the very poor. The highest category score was 4.24 on I better understand farmland rental rates and where to find the information. All categories averaged 4 or higher.
Over 1200 participants, 1/3 were farmers and 2/3 landlords, utilized the workshops to determine rental agreements for 2013. Production Costs, Farmland Rental Rates, Land Values along with Farmland Rental Rates were discussed. Several websites were provided with online excel spreadsheet examples.
Participating farmers averaged 793 acres, landlords 177 farmland acres owned, it would total 387,226 acres of farmland represented at the workshops. This accounts for over 2.5 percent of all the corn and soybeans planted in 2011 in Minnesota.

Asked “What was the value of today’s workshop to attendee?” average was $139, applying to all attendees, total value was $158,738. One attendee with 15 landlords stated value of the workshop was priceless to him. It was standing room only at many of the workshops with largest group of 115 at one meeting.

Details

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