In just 12 months, the value of agricultural land in Nebraska went from its largest increase in a quarter century to being absolutely flat.

A year ago, an annual survey by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln put the rate of increase at 23 percent, a 30-year record. The latest survey results, released Thursday by agricultural economist Bruce Johnson, lower that to zero.

Despite an upward trend that continued for much of 2008, mirroring an ethanol boom and rapid increases in commodity prices, the end result is $1,424 an acre. That left the dollar value right where it started.

For prime eastern Nebraska parcels irrigated with center-pivot equipment, average values actually dropped a bit, from $4,464 an acre to $4,331.

The survey results seem to indicate the state’s most powerful economic engine — agriculture — could not out pull outside economic forces forever.

“It’s waves of recession that have come in and hit agriculture front and center with lower commodity prices and higher, more difficult input prices, and tighter margins,” Johnson said.

Dire as that may sound, the leveling off of land values after an 88 percent increase in five years doesn’t equate to somebody stomping on the brakes after years of pressing the accelerator.

“It’s kind of a midcourse correction is what it is,” Johnson said.

The loss of momentum was evident already in late 2008.

“Probably in the last three or four months, we’ve seen maybe a 4-6 percent downward adjustment overall.”

While the upward momentum lasted, it was very, very good for grain producers.

“We were seeing new and unbelievable price levels,” Johnson said. “You do the math on what we were looking at this time a year ago, and it was, ‘My gosh. The returns are just off the chart for the crop sector.’”

Boom became bust for the agricultural economy in the 1980s and for the housing economy nationally from 2007 forward.

So far, Johnson, George Beattie and others who keep a close eye on where agriculture is headed this year see a plateau, rather than a cliff.

“I don’t see a downside,” Beattie, president of the Nebraska Bankers Association, said about the impact of land prices leveling out.

Nor does he see a comparison to the national housing market, which produced a rapid rise and then a rapid fall.

“Land is more attractive to people who have money to make those types of investments,” he said, “so it’s not as volatile.”

The latest UNL survey matches with what he’s hearing from bankers and with downward movement in grain prices, he said.

“I think there’s just a realization that commodity prices are into a more normal commodity prices pattern.”

Allan Heng of Heng Farm Management in York said the latest UNL numbers are also in line with what he and his customers have been experiencing with some of the state’s most fertile acres in York County — “essentially unchanged to down slightly.”

“The whole general economy is a little more of a concern than it was a year ago,” Heng said.

“(Still) land values have held their value relative to other forms of investment.”

UNL’s Johnson said land values signal more uncertainty and some higher stress levels for farmers headed toward spring planting than a year ago.

“I think astute managers and producers will hang in there and be all right,” he added.

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or ahovey@journalstar.com.