The 2022 land use value estimates have been posted online and you can not only see the values for each category, you can see brochures that show detailed information for the data used and crops making up the counties’ composite farm. Review the information at the Virginia’s Use-Value Assessment Program website.

The average change in value for all counties that have land use assessment was an increase of $48/acre from last year.  The SLEAC values are based on a 7-year Olympic average where the highest and lowest values are dropped from the average.  As noted from Virginia Tech, “Generally, increases were due to increased net returns in pasture and soybean enterprise budgets and federal program payments. Statewide, yield and price increased significantly for soybeans, with a yield of 42 bushels an acre (8 bushel increase from the prior year) and price increased to $10.50 per bushel ($1.70 increase from the prior year) for 2020. Tax year 2020-2022 pasture budgets include updated data reflecting common production practices, resulting in lower variable and fixed costs most associated with fertilization and establishment. Counties seeing decreases generally were due to decreases in profit from corn. For specific comments refer to your county in the attached documents.