(Radio Iowa) – The development of housing and businesses has exploded in the last decade in many of the state’s metro areas, but a farmland expert says all the building hasn’t put much of a dent in agriculture. Peoples Company president Steve Bruere says central Iowa is a good example. “There’s 27 million crop acres in Iowa. And when you look at what’s happening around the Des Moines metro, there’s about three-thousand new homes being built a year. And so that takes about one thousand acres of development ground,” he says. Bruere says when you throw in commercial developments, that takes another one-thousand acres.

“Of course for farmers and people that grew up on a farm, it makes you sick to see some of these fields get turned into turned into houses,” Bruere says. “But from a statewide impact, you know, that 27 million acre figure versus the two thousand it’s not going to move the needle.” He says there will be some local impact on farming, especially if there are big chunks of land that are bought for data centers or other development.

“That’ll have an impact on the local market when you see those big transactions happen. But, you know, as far as food security and whatnot, it’s not as impactful as one might think,” according Bruere. His company producers an annual report that reviews all types of sales information and other factors for Iowa’s cropland. The survey this found farmland prices have held their own along with the rest of the country despite issues with the national economy.