FARGO — Agricultural land prices are continuing to rise in North Dakota and Minnesota despite challenges in the U.S. farm economy, experts say.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture priced North Dakota cropland at $2,710 an acre, 4.2% higher than the previous year. Minnesota’s cropland value was $7,000 per acre in August, up 7% from 2024, the USDA said in its August land values summary.

Experts expected land prices in Minnesota and North Dakota to correct themselves in 2024 or 2025, according to Troy Swee, an area sales manager for Farmers National Company. Farm income this year is expected to hit its lowest point since 2020, Farmers National Senior Vice President for Real Estate Paul Schadegg said, citing USDA forecasts.

Interest rates and farming costs also climbed this year, while commodity prices fell, Swee said.

“If you could go back in time and say, ‘We were going to decrease corn prices by 50% and double interest rates,’ everyone would have expected a bubble to burst, and it just didn’t,” Swee told The Forum. “There’s just a lot of demand for farm ground with these farmers.”

North Dakota and Minnesota follow a national trend, as cropland prices in the U.S. steadily climbed over the last 15 years, from $2,980 an acre in 2011 to $5,830 in 2025, the summary said. Pastureland prices also rose during the same time period, from $1,070 per acre to $1,920 this year.

The North Dakota Department of Trust Lands Annual Land Survey estimates cropland prices are averaging higher than USDA numbers. Per-acre price tags rose from $2,519 in 2022 to $3,534 this year, according to the survey published in April by North Dakota State University Extensionf Service.

That’s 40% growth over the last four years and a 10.55% increase from 2024, according to NDSU Extension. North Dakota’s average pastureland prices grew more than 50% since 2021, the survey said.

High demand for land and limited available property for sale are contributing to rising prices, Swee said. A record number of farms in the U.S. sold in 2022 and 2023, he said.

“Since then, inventories have been down,” he said. “A year ago, we sold about 25% less farms across the nation.”

The number of farms sold this year should remain flat compared to 2024, he said.

Today’s land prices are also an indicator of what happened several years ago, said Bryon Parman, an associate professor and agricultural finance specialist at NDSU. Farmers reported high net incomes, including a record year in 2022, he said.

Along with more cash on hand and low interest rates, producers felt more comfortable investing in land, Parman said.

“You get an increase in demand, and you’ve had a couple years in a row of strong net income years, and that drives prices higher,” he said.

Cropland prices in the south Red River Valley are the highest in North Dakota, according to NDSU. Prices in Cass, Traill and Richland counties averaged $6,471 per acre, up 7% from last year, the NDSU survey said.

About 75% of farmland is being purchased by local farmers, Swee said. Local investors are also buying farmland to expand their portfolios, while outside groups or corporations are getting very little farmland, he said.

“They’re getting probably around 5% to 7%,” Swee said of out-of-state investors. “They’re always at auctions, and they’re always present online, but they’re generally looking for deals.”

Swee noted record profits in the livestock industry. Feeder cattle hit an all-time high of $3.80 a pound by noon Tuesday.

“This is the best year for cattle producers ever,” Swee said.

U.S. cattle numbers have declined for six years due to drought, said Tim Petry, associate professor and livestock economist at NDSU. Farmers didn’t have enough pasture to feed cattle and had to sell them, he said.

As of July 1, the U.S. reported it had 28.7 million head of beef cattle, slightly up from last year but near 60-year lows, according to the USDA.

“It means we have a very low supply of beef,” Petry said.

The demand for all meat has gone up, he said. The hype of not eating meat has changed to including more protein in diets, he said.

“Meat is back in vogue,” Petry said. “That increases the demand for meat, and so meat prices have been going up.”

Pastures are returning to normal, and producers want to bring herd numbers back up, he said. That causes land prices to go up, he said.

The biggest threat to land prices is the current state of the agricultural economy, Swee said. With lower commodity prices, farmers may sell land to balance budget sheets, he said.

That could “put pressure on these land markets to come down,” he said.

The weakness in commodity prices and the rise of production costs could slow land prices, Parman said.

“At least for the next year, I don’t think we’re going to see a decline in farmland prices, but I do think we’re certainly going to see a slowdown in increase,” he said.

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By Daniel Flatley and Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he saw the U.S. as locked in a trade war with China, even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent proposed a longer pause on high tariffs on Chinese goods to resolve a conflict over critical minerals.

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“Well, you’re in one now,” Trump said Wednesday when asked by a reporter if the world’s two largest economies are in for a sustained trade war if they cannot reach a trade deal. “We have a 100% tariff. If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing.”

Trump spoke just hours after Bessent dangled the possibility of extending a pause of import duties on Chinese goods for longer than three months if China halts its plan for strict new export controls on rare-earth elements. The U.S. and China have agreed to a series of 90-day truces since earlier this year, with the next deadline looming in November.

“Is it possible that we could go to a longer roll in return? Perhaps. But all that’s going to be negotiated in the coming weeks,” Bessent said during a press conference in Washington.

The dueling remarks underscored the whiplash investors have felt as tensions have flared in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. U.S. equities extended gains after Bessent’s comments, while Trump’s remarks came after trading closed in New York.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer cast doubt that Beijing would go ahead with the plan, which he said would choke off trade in a wide variety of consumer products that contain even a trace of rare earths.

“The scope and the scale is just unimaginable, and it cannot be implemented,” Greer said.

In the meantime, Bessent predicted a coordinated response to China’s move from the U.S. and several allies.

“We’re going to have a fulsome, group response to this, because bureaucrats in China cannot manage the supply chain or the manufacturing process for the rest of the world,” Bessent said earlier Wednesday at a CNBC-hosted forum in Washington.

Coordinated response

Pointing out that “all my counterparts” are in Washington for the annual gathering of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank this week, he said, “We’re going to be speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies.”

An escalating tit-for-tat between Washington and Beijing has renewed investors’ fears that world’s two largest economies could soon be locked in a full-blown trade war.

China’s new rules, announced last week, require overseas firms to obtain Chinese government approval before exporting products containing even trace amounts of certain rare earths that originated in China.

Trump responded by threatening to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods by Nov. 1. He floated the idea of scrapping a planned meeting with President Xi Jinping and warned the U.S. could cut off trade in cooking oil, a key input in biofuels.

The Treasury chief said that as far as he’s aware, Trump “is a go” on meeting Xi later this month in South Korea. Bessent said there’s a “very good chance” that he travels to Asia before Trump and meets with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Asia trip

Bessent said he expected trade announcements to be made during Trump’s Asia tour. The president is expected to attend a summit with Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Malaysia before going on to Japan and South Korea, which will be hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting.

The U.S. is “about to finish up” negotiations with South Korea, Bessent added. Those talks have lately revolved around the contours of a giant investment program. U.S.-Canada talks are “back on track,” Bessent also said. He also indicated progress with India.

Bessent dismissed the notion that a slide in the stock market would force the Trump administration into a negotiating position with Beijing, saying that what spurs such talks is instead the economic interest of the nation. The U.S. won’t negotiate with China “because the stock market is going down,” he said.

He also rejected the idea that the rising price of gold reflects some fundamental concern with regard to the dollar. He flagged that U.S. interest rates have come down relative to other economies, and said with regard to the euro that it “should be strong,” given how currency theory would suggest exchange-rate appreciation when fiscal expansion is underway.

‘Unhinged’ official

Bessent also on Wednesday singled out a Chinese vice Commerce minister, Li Chenggang, for particular criticism, referencing comments he made during an August visit to Washington. He said Li had shown up “uninvited.”

“Perhaps the vice minister who showed up here with very incendiary language on August 28 has gone rogue,” Bessent said during the press conference at Treasury. “This individual was very disrespectful,” he said, after earlier calling him “unhinged” in the CNBC event.

Li had warned China would “cause global chaos” if the U.S. went ahead with plans for port fees for Chinese ships, Bessent said. “Maybe he thinks he’s a wolf warrior,” he said, referring to a term used for aggressive Chinese diplomats.

Bessent also said that China had initially ascribed a slowdown in the supply of rare earth magnets to a holiday — an argument that suggested “they can’t be trusted with the global supply chain.”

“If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple,” he said. “The world does not want to decouple,” he said. “We want to de-risk. But signals like this are signs of decoupling, which we don’t believe China wants.”

With assistance from Catherine Lucey, Phil Kuntz, Lauren Dezenski and Derek Wallbank.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Minnesota officials are telling local governments to stop approving new applications for food stamps after receiving a warning from the federal government that funding for the program could dry up if the ongoing government shutdown doesn’t end by November.

The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families has informed counties and tribal nations in the state that they couldn’t approve new SNAP applications after 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15.

SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, serves around 440,000 Minnesotans — approximately 8% of the state’s population.

“November’s SNAP benefits are at risk and may be unavailable if the shutdown continues,” the Department of Children, Youth, and Families said in a statement on its website.

Interruption of new applications is the first major disruption to state and local government in Minnesota since the shutdown started on Oct. 1.

SNAP benefits will remain funded through the end of the month, though the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned funding would expire in November, according to state officials.

The administration of President Donald Trump last week started warning states that there would be “insufficient funds” to cover SNAP benefits in November if the shutdown continues, Axios reported.

Ramsey County confirmed it had received word from state officials that it will need to stop approving benefits until the shutdown is over.

State officials earlier this month said that it will take time before the state can fully understand the effects of the government shutdown.

“Our current analysis is that the lapse in federal funds will have minimal impact on federally funded state activities in the short term,” Minnesota Budget Director Ahna Minge said during a briefing at the Capitol with Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 2.

What’s causing the federal shutdown?

This year’s shutdown comes after President Donald Trump and Democrats failed to reach a on funding the government at the end of September.

Congressional Democrats seeking to preserve soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies for millions of Americans declined to support a Republican measure to fund the government through most of November. GOP leaders say keeping the subsidies would cost more than $1 trillion.

A partial government shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019 lasted 35 days, though food assistance was not interrupted. House Speaker Mike Johnson warned the 2025 shutdown could be the longest in history, the Associated Press reported Monday. As of Wednesday, there was no deal in sight.

Food shelves, hotline for food assistance

The Department of Children, Youth, and Families on its website noted that Minnesota has more than 300 food shelves and pointed to an online map as well as a hotline for food help: 1-888-711-1151.

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By AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was weighing carrying out land operations on the country.

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The acknowledgement of covert action in Venezuela by the U.S. spy agency comes after the U.S. military in recent weeks has carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. U.S. forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing 27 people, and four of those vessels originated from Venezuela.

Asked during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday why he had authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump affirmed he had made the move.

“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

Trump added the administration “is looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA has authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump made the unusual acknowledgement of a CIA operation shortly after The New York Times published that the CIA had been authorized to carry out covert action in Venezuela.

Early this month, the Trump administration declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and pronounced the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

The move has spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorization.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said while she supports cracking down on trafficking, the administration has gone too far.

“The Trump administration’s authorization of covert C.I.A. action, conducting lethal strikes on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Shaheen said. “The American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the U.S. into another conflict, putting servicemembers at risk or pursuing a regime-change operation.”

The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration has only pointed to unclassified video clips of the strikes posted on social media by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and has yet to produce “hard evidence” that the vessels were carrying drugs.

Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the administration is offering little detail about how it came to decide the U.S. is in armed conflict with cartels or which criminal organizations it claims are “unlawful combatants.”

Even as the U.S. military has carried out strikes on some vessels, the U.S. Coast Guard has continued with its typical practice of stopping boats and seizing drugs.

Trump on Wednesday explained away the action, saying the traditional approach hasn’t worked.

“Because we’ve been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective. They have faster boats,” he said. ”They’re world-class speedboats, but they’re not faster than missiles.”

Human rights groups have raised concerns that the strikes flout international law and are extrajudicial killings.