Ida land sale brings $23,400 per acreLatest in string of hot auctions

For the second time this year, a new land auction record has been set in Ida County.

A little more than 219 cropland acres sold last Thursday morning in Holstein for $5.12 million, establishing the new Ida per-acre record at $23,400. Midwest Land Management of Spencer handled the sale for Benning Farms, Inc.

The ground, located directly east of Holstein on Hwy. 20 in Griggs Township, sold in two tracts.

The first tract (106.2 acres) has an exceptional Corn Suitability Rating (CSR2) of 95.5 and yielded 277 bushels of corn per acre in 2021 and 77 bushels for soybeans in 2020. The ground has produced an average of 240 bushels of corn per acre over the past decade.

The second tract has a CRS2 of 88.5 and posted a corn yield of 241 bushels per acre in 2020 and 78 bushels of beans in 2021.

The previous Ida County record was set in January when Midwest Land Management sold a pair of Benning tracts (163 acres) north of Holstein for $21,300 per acre.

Last week’s record is the latest in a string of hot land auctions Northwest Iowa has seen since mid-spring.

Just over 160 acres in O’Brien County sold in July for $21,050 per acre. A Plymouth County sale in late May saw the gavel drop on a price of $25,000 per acre, while two tracts in Clay County brought $21,000 that same month.

In April, the estate of Arthur L. Dahl sold 1,242 acres spread across Buena Vista and Clay County for nearly $20 million, including multiple tracts that fetched north of $20,000 per acre.