Cost of land these days

I agree , not sure how 30 grand is realistic anymore . That can’t be a living wage . But yeah , if your farm is a depleted proprietorship than sometimes your wage will float from one year to the next . Might be half a million one year and 50 000 the next year . I guess if your farm is a corporation than it can stay more constant .
Everybody does it different and is ok !

So when talking break evens, I looks like many don’t actually count all the costs. You can’t forget about machinery, whether it’s paid for or not, there is a cost. Repairs etc. probably needs to be replaced one day. Fuel. Any labour. Own all your land, should include some kind of opportunity cost.
If $240 is a true break even on wheat, I applaud that. But I doubt it is.

Tracking of all my costs are quite easy with all my farm accounts being seperate form my personel. I put away a % of profit every year to use towards upgrades, so maybe that should be in my prodcution costs and would boost my bottom line. I am a HD mechanic by trade so I do all my own repairs including major overhauls in the off season - so my repair bills are basically parts only. I run older stuff so I dont have equip payments or land payments as I paid off all the land a few years back. I didn't list every single of my costs to prove out my number for wheat but everything is included if applicable from crop/equip/liability insurance to a breakout of power in the house for my farm office. Tracked it for 27 years since I took over the farm after my dad passed away suddenly. Had alot of help setting up my spreadsheets as my mom and sister are both CA's.

I suspect that cheap debt is at the root of the self control factor.

I would think paying yourself first is no different than living in the city and working a job. Need to cover the cost of the house, food, taxes some kind of transportation and perhaps a little extra to go on a trip now and then, take in a football game and such. Most people don't need a large farm profit line to do that. And a lot of the things are priced into the total farm operation when living on the farm.

However some of those nice things to have on the farm are much more expensive than for the city guy. The new lawnmower in the city becomes a new compact tractor for the guy on the farm. A two car garage in the city becomes a modest sized shop on the farm as something to save up for or budget in order to pay yourself. So hard to say really. I suspect that is why people don't dwell on it too much.

As for price of land. Keep in mind how often people mention what "investors" are doing. Because investors are in a sector to make capital grow and they move as needed. Investors in farmland does not make them long term holders. And that is the most important consideration of all when the word "investor" is used. A true investor is very likely to move out of the sector when the returns are no longer present. So buyers become sellers. And we all know what happens when there are more sellers than buyers.

If investors are actually looking to hold the land to hunt, build acreages, do some hobby farming and such then no concern. If they are there simply to see their 5% or more return, then if there ever is a lack of return evident we sill see investors doing exactly what the word "investor" means.

Input costs are about $240/ac over here.  Depends what you all want to include after that.

Got a call from the real estate agent this morning but he said he couldn't say who it was, but did say it was all rented back out.
My neighbor said he heard it was an alberta farmer who was going to farm it himself.