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> Almost impossible to buy your way into farming as an individual business strategy (10k/acre in the midwest, need ~500 acres to support a family).

Can anyone explain to me why farmland in developed countries is so expensive? It sounds like a terrible investment to buy it at such prices, and yet somebody's doing it.

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The prices are set by large farmers adding acres and acres available for sale are relatively scarce.

When you consider the people doing the buying are at scale (thousands of acres) and can spread the cost of very expensive equipment over many acres it starts to make sense. The marginal cost of farming another 80 acres in terms of time and equipment is quite low.

Correct.

lots of foreign corporations buying it to secure food production and during the 0% interest rate days post 2008 lots of hedge funds and investors who just needed a place to throw money, similar to VCs investing in any random startup they could find. Worst case scenario the investors lose money on farmland and use it to offset taxes on a different investment. Losers are the local people who can't get land because some investor from California or New York buying via online auction

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