Farmland Values & License Declined

Farmland Values & License Declined. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

A wolf exhibition company in northern Idaho will not have their license renewed after the Idaho Supreme Court declined the renewal. That denial was issued back on November 19th for Wolf People which allows people to have personal experiences with wolves including physical contact. The group petitioned for a judicial review of the licensing actions. In July, a northern Idaho judge affirmed the suspension. Wolf People have been dealing with legal troubles for years including failing to report the births and deaths of captive wolves, transferring and transporting the predators without permission and failing to report the escape of a wolf.

Real estate has almost always been a good investment but lately values of land have been slipping and that includes farmland although not quite as much as some analysts expected. Rob Johannson says the decline as come from lower commodity prices.

JOHANNSON: We have seen a good amount of evidence that both land values and cash rents have bene coming down in 2015 and that was what we expected. The fall in those values has been relatively minor.

Minor being only about 1.6% from 2014. But agricultural bankers recently surveyed are saying they expect even larger drops in farm real estate values and cash rents. Anyone up for investing in gold?

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.