I'm not sure what it is now but shortly before covid I was looking to see what farmland cost in the corn belt and it varied from 12k to 15k per acre depending on if it had low spots (flooding in spring) and road access. A large family owned 5k acre farm is $75 million land value on paper. Somewhere around the late 1800's somebody did a soil fertility analysis around the world and Iowa, illinois and Indiana corn belt scored highest. A close second was the Donbass and Russian steppes near Ukranian Russian border. The study estimated there was enough fixed nitrogen in usa cornbelt to last 70 years or so and it turned out pretty accurate estimate. They didn't start adding fertilizer until the sixties and the estimate was only a little off due to changes is planting methods and hybrid seeds. A lot of Illinois farm land owners don't even farm the land or live in Illinois even tho their families have owned the land since the mid 1800's. They do a thing called cash rent where they charge a local farmer or farm company per acre rent. At the time I looked it was about $300 acre if they take it at start of the season or for a lower initial rent at the start of the season and take a percentage of the yield after crops sold in the fall which means they take some of the crop risk for a potentially higher rent. Iirc I figured out a farm land purchase would yield about a 3% yearly return if take the guaranteed $300 per acre for mid priced land. That doesn't include the considerable amount of usa ag welfare. In Illinois they get fed ag payments, state ag payments, reduced property and income tax, reduced state fees for vehicles and lots of other goodies. 95% of counties are red so they also control the state and fed house of reps which means they have outsized political power.