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"Agriculture use" is the zoning class of choice for developers to hold land out of town until the town gets there. They have to show some actual agricultural use, so they lease it to farmers or cut the pine trees, and in return they get the lowest tax value for holding the land.

Then when they want to cash it in, they rezone it to commercial or residential and build on it.

> Theres no reason for me to think it will appreciate any faster than inflation because demand is stagnant.

It has in the past. I looked at a $1M (~$1.5M in today's dollars) farm 20 years ago. Couldn't figure out how to make it work at the time, sadly. Frankly, it seemed like complete insanity when I got into the numbers. But, today it would sell for ~$6-8M. About the same gains as the stock market over the same period, granted, but it's way easier to convince someone to loan you money for land than it is to buy stocks.

There may be no reason to think that will continue to happen into the future, but many are willing to place that bet.

Get a mortgage on the land. Farm pays the interest. The price of the land goes up with inflation, the size of the loan doesn't. Difference is low tax profit.