This letter is intended only for accredited investors who are clients of either Blackburne & Brown or C-Loans, Inc. Today we'll talk more about skyrocketing farm land prices here in the Midwest.

Joke Du Jour

This nice grandmother wrote: When my granddaughter, Ann, was 9-years-old, she was given an assignment by her teacher to write a story on "Where my family came from." The purpose was to understand your genealogy.

I was not aware of her assignment when she asked me at the dining room table one night, "Grandma, where did I come from?" I responded quite nervously because my son and daughter-in- law were out of town, and I was stalling until they returned home, "Well, honey, the stork brought you." "Where did Mom come from then?" "The stork brought her, too." "OK, then.... where did you come from?" "The stork brought me too, dear." "Okay, thanks, Grandma." I did not think anything more about it until two days later when I was cleaning Ann's room and read the first sentence of her paper... "For three generations there have been no natural births in our family."

First Few Farm Offerings a Huge Success

Blackburne & Brown Equity Preservation Fund closed escrow last month on our first farm land offering. Arguably our first set of investors have already made 50% to 60% on their money. We have an entire staff business school graduates who are trying to locate farm land for us here in Northern Indiana (where there is lots of water), and they cannot find very much farm land listed for less than $4,000 to $6,000 per acre. The investors in our first deal were able to buy their land for just $2,500 per acre. This farm land market is manic.

Are you willing to consider farm land investments? If so, please click here.

Fun Stuff

The circus came to little Plymouth, Indiana last night. It was called Circus Pages, operated by the Page family. Mrs. Page painted kid's faces. Mr. Page trained the lions and tigers ... and sold the balloons. A pretty sixteen-year-old daughter was right in the cage with the lions and tigers too - one of which actually looked scary and mean - and she also did the tapeze act. The six-year-old little Page boy was the clown, and even the four-year-old niece rode the elephants. It wasn't quite Barnum and Bailey, but for a small country town like ours, the circus coming to town was pretty exciting!

They may be the most delicious treat on earth. Last week Cisca brought home Macadamia nuts dusted with Wasabi sauce, that dipping sauce you use with sushi. Oh my goodness, they were goooood - macadamia nuts with Wasabi flavoring.

Thirty years ago my dad and I watched the terrific action movie, "300 Spartans". The movie detailed how just 300 Spartans held the pass at Thermopylae for three days against a Persian army of over one million soldiers. We loved the movie, but those Spartans were sure a tough tribe. The Spartan king's own mother told her son, Leonitas, "Come back with your shield ... or on it." (They used their shields as litters to carry back their dead.) Now there is a remake of that classic movie entitled, "300". It is a fantastic action flick. I've seen it twice now with my own sons. Life has a certain symmetry, huh?

Second and Third Farm Land Offerings Sold Out?

Our second farm land investment offering and our third farm land offering went out for sale this month, on paper they too are sold out. However, you can still get on the backup list by emailing Warren More or by calling him at 916-338-3232. Cancellations are not uncommon. Just type in the subject line, "Backup on Farm Land Deals". Folks, you definitely want in on these deals if a spot opens up. I personally inspected the land. Other than gold, which is still marching upwards, when was the last time you saw me use the word, "recommend"? I definitely recommend these farm land deals.

Shark Attack

"In Palm Beach, Florida this week, a shark attacked a lawyer who was surfing. Remarkably, the shark survived." -- Jay Leno

My Chat with a Certified Agronomist

We recently hired a certified agronomist to assist us in some upcoming farm land purchases. We chatted over a few beers this week, and he was amazed at the deals we had found. It was his opinion that farm land here will soar to $7,000 per acres within two years.

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Are you willing to consider farm land investments? If so, please click here.

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He also pointed out that soybean prices would also rise in a sympathetic response. Farmers were bound to stop planting as much soybeans in response to soaring corn prices.

Taxidermist Joke

There was once an aspiring veterinarian who put himself through veterinary school working nights as a taxidermist. Upon graduation, he decided he could combine his two vocations to better serve the needs of his patients and their owners, while doubling his practice. He opened his own offices with a shingle on the door saying, "Dr. Jones, Veterinary Medicine and Taxidermy - Either way, you get your dog back!"

The Case for Corn Farm Land

Why buy corn farm land in the middle of Indiana?  According to a February 20th article in Bloomberg entitled Corn Farms Replace New York Lofts as Hottest Property, “Farmland from Iowa to Argentina is rising faster in price than apartments in Manhattan and London for the first time in 30 years.  Demand for corn used in ethanol increased the value of crop land 16 percent in Indiana and 35 percent in Idaho in 2006, government figures show. 

Farmland returns `will take a quantum leap over the next 18 months,’ after corn prices surged to a 10-year high in February, said Murray Wise, the 58-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Westchester Group Inc. in Champaign, Illinois, who oversees $460 million of land investments.  Wise, who was born on a Canadian farm and now manages 85,000 acres, said prices in the U.S. Midwest may gain 12 percent a year through 2017. Farmland rose in value in 34 of the last 37 years, according to data compiled by UBSAgriVest, a unit of UBS AG, the world's biggest money manager. The returns are attracting hedge funds and investment brokers.”

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Are you willing to consider farm land investments? If so, please click here.

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“Average U.S. farm prices increased by 15 percent in 2006, Agriculture Department data show … Marc Faber, a Hong Kong-based investor who manages about $300 million, ‘Farmland is very inexpensive in a world of inflated asset prices,’ he said in an interview Feb. 4.

``It is not the investor that is pushing up land prices, it is the surge in corn prices from ethanol demand,'' said Jim Farrell, chief executive officer at Farmers National Co. in Omaha, which manages almost 1.2 million acres of farmland on 3,700 farms. ``Midwest farmland is predicated by the strength or weakness of corn prices.''  Corn futures have jumped 82 percent on the Chicago Board of Trade in the past year. They gained 0.6 percent to $4.32 a bushel in electronic trading as of 3:43 a.m. local time. 

“Jim Rogers, the hedge fund manager (and the former partner of George Soros in the Quantum Fund) who predicted the start of the commodity rally in 1999, said global warming will hinder crops and has advised purchasing farmland for at least a decade.  ‘Because of the disruptions, agricultural prices will go through the roof,’ he told reporters in Melbourne on Feb. 7. `I am extremely bullish on agriculture’.”

According to the DailyReckoning.com:  The best bet for long-term profits is grain, argues Mark McLornan, founding member of Argo Terra - a global farming company.  “When incomes rise, so does meat consumption - growth in beef and chicken consumption in China is running at 20% a year. It takes nine kilograms of grain to produce one of beef. Already, 67% of global grains are used as animal feed, so this surge in demand will have a huge impact on the grains market. Demand for biofuels is making matters worse. Corn used in fuel production in America is set to rise from 6.4% of U.S. corn production in 2001 to 30% by 2007/2008.”

McLornan says that stocks of corn and wheat, the main global grains, are at record low levels. And as demand rises, it is getting harder and harder to expand supplies. Fertilizers have added to output greatly in the last 50 years, but additional inputs of fertilizers now produce diminishing returns. Nor is it easy to put new land into production. While land is available, water is scarce. And as populations and human development increases, agriculture has to compete for water with other uses.  “I believe the fundamentals make grains a once-in-a-decade opportunity,” says McLornan.

According to a March 7, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal:  “Farmland prices are soaring across the Midwest amid a surge in demand for corn driven by the ethanol boom.  In the past year, cropland prices have climbed by double-digit percentages in many parts of the Heartland, as growers looking to cash in on $4-a-bushel prices for corn-up from about $2 a year ago-have scrambled to add arable acreage.  Some outside real-estate investors also are seeking agricultural land, but the most recent aggressive buyers have been established farmers who want to expand.”

“The dynamics of our market changed,” as the prices of commodities such as corn and soybeans soared, says John Kirkpatrick, a vice president and real-estate broker with Westchester Group Inc., a farm asset-management company.  Mr. Kirkpatrick adds that farmers now “have a chance to make some real money.”

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Are you willing to consider farm land investments? If so, please click here.

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Baby Joke

Two babies were sitting in their cribs, when one baby shouted to the other, "Are you a little girl or a little boy?" "I don't know," replied the other baby giggling. "What do you mean, you don't know?" said the first baby. "I mean I don't know how to tell the difference," was the reply. "Well, I do," said the first baby chuckling. "I'll climb into your crib and find out." He carefully maneuvered himself into the other baby's crib, then quickly disappeared beneath the blankets. After a couple of minutes, he resurfaced with a big grin on his face. "You're a little girl, and I'm a little boy," he said proudly. "You're ever so clever," cooed the baby girl, "but how can you tell?" "It's quite easy really," replied the baby boy, "you've got pink booties, and I've got blue ones!"

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