By Brad Haire
University of Georgia

People touting the value of land will often say, “They’re not
making any more of it.” Because “they” really aren’t making more
land, a University of Georgia economist wants to place values on
rural lands that he says are in a tug-of-war between rural and
urban interests.

“There are emerging land-use conflicts in rural areas,” said
John Bergstrom, an economist with the UGA College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. New residents want more
land for housing and amenities. Longtime residents want land for
farming and forestry.

For Bergstrom’s research, he divides land value into to two
categories: consumptive and nonconsumptive.

The consumptive value is what can be extracted from the use of
the land. This includes the value of its agricultural, forestry,
hunting and fishing products. The nonconsumptive value is the
value of the things “that are not harvested,” he said. He
considers things like residential and ecological value.

The consumptive value of rural land has been well documented, he
said. Reports compiled by CAES scientists break this down
annually by commodity and county. For example, the annual farm-
gate value (the value of farm products leaving the farm) in
Habersham County, in north Georgia, is $253 million. For
Colquitt County, in south Georgia, it’s $287 million.

But placing a value on the nonconsumptive values of rural land
is harder, he said. “The data we do have suggests that the
nonconsumptive value of land is growing,” Bergstrom said.

In 1996, an acre of farmland in north-central Georgia was worth
$4,500, according to a CAES study. An acre there now costs
$12,000.

“It would be likely that this land is not going to be used for
agriculture,” Bergstrom said. “It is being bought for
development or being bought for speculation.”

The price of farmland in south Georgia, where most of the
state’s row crops are grown, has increased, but not at the level
in north Georgia. An acre of farmland in south Georgia costs
$1,000 per acre, about $200 more per acre than a decade ago.

“But even in south Georgia there’s a trend where people are
bypassing the suburbs and moving farther out into the country
and into areas of traditional agriculture,” he said. “This is
called exurban development.”

Bergstrom’s future research will focus on better quantifying the
nonconsumptive value of rural land by using geographical
information systems, or GIS, and conducting surveys. He wants to
create a database of information.

“The reason we want to do this is to provide information for
solutions to these conflicts, which I believe will only continue
to grow,” Bergstrom said. “The information could be used by
private landowners and local governments to set priorities for
protection or the development of different land.”

Bergstrom knows Georgians are interested in preserving farmland.
According to a survey he conducted three years ago, Georgians
would be willing to contribute through a one-time tax about $62
per household to preserve 100,000 acres or $81 to preserve as
much as 2 million acres.

Bergstrom just returned from a one-year leave of study in
Colorado, a state which has for many years collected data on the
value of rural land, he said. He will apply in Georgia some of
the data-collecting techniques he learned there.