IT'S A DEFLATIONARY EPOCH:

For at least 150 years, commodity crop prices have been strongly deflationary.

Farm productivity has increased rapidly. Mechanization, improved crop genetics, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides have all boosted how much an acre of land can produce and how many acres a farmer can farm.

The demand for farm products is inelastic. Inelastic demand means even sizable changes in price have little impact on demand. A human stomach is only so big! If food prices go down, most people buy other things rather than stuff more food down their gullets. Prices must decrease significantly to match supply and demand after productivity increases. Even with an increased global population, increased grain demand from meat consumption, and government programs, land under cultivation has decreased in the US. [...]

As electrification reduces fuel demand, the demand for ethanol will fall with it. The government has resisted increasing the blend limit because consumers favor gasoline. If the government wants to subsidize corn production, it will have to use other programs. [...]

Rural America has seen several leaps in transportation technology; Railroads, cars, and modern highways/interstates. As transportation improves, several shifts occur. Local service hubs are replaced by larger service hubs further away. The tiny towns die while the bigger ones consolidate. Population declines from increasing crop productivity prevent dead towns from coming back.

Land within an hour of big labor markets starts to behave like an exurb or a bedroom community. More residents work in the city instead of farming. Population grows, plot sizes decrease, and land prices increase as more accessible jobs and services make the land more desirable.

Self-driving cars impact rural areas more than urban ones. In cities, lowering driving costs results in more congestion or requires congestion taxes (or tunnels!). In rural areas, there is no shortage of road capacity. Long drives to doctor's appointments or stores can be more enjoyable.

Transportation improvements like small electric airliners flying out of general aviation airports, VTOL taxis, and HyperLoops could create another step change. It might be possible to live in rural South Dakota yet commute multiple times per week to Minneapolis for work. A night visiting the big city could be done within a babysitting time frame. The trend of services concentrating in hubs would continue. [...]

In energy policy circles, there is concern about the footprint of wind and solar farms. Renewable electricity will significantly reduce the demand for farmland devoted to energy production.

Something like 10 million acres of solar is needed to meet US electricity demand and electrify transportation. Around 35 million acres are used for corn to make ethanol. Some estimates suggest other biofuels use another 15 million acres. Solar-charged electric vehicles would take this close to zero.

Currently, wind meets almost 10% of US electricity demand. The turbines and roads occupy roughly 90,000 acres. The wind farms, including undisturbed fields in between turbines, occupy around 5 million acres. Even if wind turbines dot the countryside, they will use almost no agricultural land.

A 100% renewable electricity economy would reduce demand for cropland by 15%-20%, even if we build every solar panel and wind turbine on cropland instead of rangeland, empty land, or roofs.

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