Frequently Asked Questions
What crops define Missouri agriculture and which regions are most productive?
Missouri agriculture splits between the northern row crop country and the southern livestock-forage country. Northern Missouri counties from Kansas City and Columbia north to the Iowa line produce corn, soybeans and hay on deep loess-derived and glacial soils.
The Missouri Bootheel in the state’s southeastern corner mirrors the Mississippi Delta with cotton, rice, soybeans, and corn on alluvial bottomland soils. Central Missouri along the Missouri River has the most diverse agricultural mix including corn, soybeans, hay, row crops and livestock.
Cattle and hay operations dominate the Ozark region where rolling terrain limits large-scale row crop farming. Southern Missouri historically led the nation in turkey production before the industry consolidated in neighboring states.
How does northern Missouri farmland compare to Iowa for agricultural investment?
Northern Missouri farmland in counties like Adair, Knox, Putnam and Sullivan offers row crop agricultural investment at prices 25 to 40 percent below comparable Iowa counties across the border. The soils in northern Missouri are deep, productive and capable of corn yields of 170 to 200 bushels per acre in good years.
Cash rents run $130 to $210 per acre for quality ground compared to $250 to $350 per acre for top Iowa ground in adjacent counties. The drainage infrastructure in northern Missouri is generally less developed than Iowa with less installed tile drainage, which can affect yield consistency in wet years.
For buyers willing to potentially invest in drainage improvements, northern Missouri offers an opportunity to purchase productive Corn Belt farmland at a meaningful discount to the Iowa market.
What is the Missouri Bootheel and what makes its farmland distinct from northern Missouri?
The Missouri Bootheel encompasses Pemiscot, New Madrid, Dunklin, Stoddard and Scott counties in the state’s far southeast corner. The region is geologically and culturally part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, identical in character to the Arkansas and Tennessee Delta on either side.
The deep alluvial soils deposited by thousands of years of Mississippi River flooding are among the most fertile in the country. Cotton, rice, soybeans, and corn grow on flat, extensively drained ground served by a network of drainage ditches and pumping stations.
Bootheel farmland trades for $3,000 to $5,500 per acre, meaningfully below comparable Arkansas Delta ground at similar productivity levels, creating a value opportunity for buyers who look beyond the typical Missouri farm investment geography.