The Role of Farmland in an Investment Portfolio: Analysis of Illinois Endowment Farms

The recent financial crisis has renewed interest in alternative asset classes such as farmland. Previous work has shown that farmland may provide expected return premiums while adding little additional risk to a diversified portfolio. However, these studies have been based on relatively short time periods and aggregated data on farmland returns. This analysis contributes to this literature using farm-level data from the University of Illinois endowment farms, providing additional evidence that farmland could play a favorable role within an investment portfolio. The implications of these results extend to the use of farmland within general investment portfolios.