Regional Ag Profile - The Missouri Bootheel
We believe the Missouri Bootheel is the strongest farmland market in the Mississippi Delta due to its fertile soils and abundant groundwater resources. These natural resources have created a thriving agricultural economy with a strong operator base and diverse crop production history. Due to these qualities, the Missouri Bootheel has been the strongest performing farmland market in the Mississippi Delta in recent years, showing greater annual appreciation and higher lease rates when compared to the rest of the Mississippi Delta
Farmland Value Trends in the Bootheel
Farmland values in the Bootheel region have experienced consistent growth over time with more rapid appreciation over the last five years. For a longer term view, the figure below shows USDA agricultural land value for the broader Mississippi Delta region and the Missouri Bootheel specifically dating back to 1997. According to the USDA, The Mississippi Delta region exhibited moderate but steady appreciation across the 26 year observed period with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7%, while the Bootheel region also exhibited steady but more robust growth, particularly from 2008 onward, with a CAGR of 5.9% across the same period.
Figure 1 - Historical Agricultural Land Values (Excludes Income from Farmland)
For a more recent analysis of farmland values in the Bootheel, we used a database of proprietary sales from Acres.com. This data differs from the USDA data in that it is based on actual proprietary transactions. This data, displayed in the figure below, shows strong appreciation post-pandemic with a surge of high price sales throughout 2024 and into the first quarter of 2025. According to Acres transaction data, Bootheel farmland increased at a 12.8% CAGR 2020 - 2025.
Figure 2 - Recent Missouri Bootheel Cropland Values
From October 2024 through March 2025, Acres.com tracked five auctions with a total of nine tracts in the Bootheel region. These represent all of the farmland auctions in the Acres.com database over this time frame. Sale prices ranged from $7,546 per tillable acre to $17,059 per tillable acre with an average price of $12,778 per tillable acre. Most recently, three tracts in western Stoddard County, approximately 14 miles from the St. Francis Bootheel Farm, were auctioned on March 19, 2025. Sale prices were $7,547, $10,335, $10,378 per tillable acre with the latter two tracts being fully graded and irrigated while the first tract featured a mixture of pasture, non-irrigated cropland, and irrigated cropland.
AcreTrader Presence in the Bootheel
AcreTrader Management has sourced and currently manages nine farms comprising approximately 2,638 acres with a total capital raise of over $19 million. Of these nine farms, seven have been held for more than one calendar year and as a result have undergone an updated valuation by the AcreTrader Management team based on comparable transactions. Those seven farms were purchased at a weighted average price per tillable to investors of $7,235 compared to their December 2024 valuation weighted average of $9,832 per tillable acre, a 35.9% increase in estimated value.
Rental rates on AcreTrader managed farms in the Bootheel have also increased with the seven farms held more than one year having a weighted average rental rate of $265 per tillable acre in 2025 relative to the weighted average of $247 per tillable acre in the first year of the farms’ leases.
Agriculture Profile
The Missouri Bootheel is the agricultural region of southeast Missouri that encompasses six full counties and portions of three additional counties with over 2 million acres in crop production annually. The Bootheel is a common sourcing region for AcreTrader Management (ATM) and we believe this region’s strength lies in the irrigated production of cotton, corn, soybeans, rice, and potatoes derived from fertile alluvial soils and robust groundwater resources. Due to the composition of soils and geology in the region, the Bootheel experiences significant groundwater recharge, causing groundwater levels to be considered robust and sustainable.
Disclosures
Farmland Return Data - USDA data is based on USDA enumerators sampling of multiple parcels in each given region and therefore represents a diversified proxy of the overall market. Farmland value data for the Mississippi Delta region is sampled by the USDA survey at an annual timestep. Farmland value data for the southeast Missouri region (Bootheel) is sampled every five years as part of the USDA Census. Farmland investments on the AcreTrader platform are held in single-asset entities and therefore lack the diversification of an index. You cannot invest directly in a farmland index or in the properties represented in the USDA data.
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