Developers of large dairy farms - including families from the Netherlands - also are buying land in northwest Ohio, which has helped boost prices, said Bart Westfall, an auctioneer and real estate agent with Westfall Realty Inc. in Williams County s West Unity.

“I don t see anything that I ve heard or can see on the horizon that is going to have a negative impact,” Mr. Westfall said of land prices.

However, Mr. Slicker, the farmer, pointed to several possible pitfalls.

If the U.S. government should halt or drastically reduce aid to farmers, land prices in Ohio would fall by $1,000 an acre, he said. With government deficits accumulating, he questioned whether farm subsidies might be reduced after the presidential election.

For Mr. Slicker, whose family wants to expand to 5,000 to 6,000 acres in the next 15 years from 4,000 now, steady or lower prices would be good. Mr. Slicker, who is 25, said land prices in northeast Ohio have tripled in his lifetime.

Families such as his with young people interested in farming are likely to make numerous land transactions, selling longtime family farms in high-priced areas and reinvesting in more rural counties.

That s one reason some predict land prices will rise almost across the state. But Mr. Slicker said most farm families don t have someone his age who wants to raise crops. Older farmers are less likely to reinvest in land, he said, predicting land prices in the short term are likely to hold fairly steady in rural northwest Ohio.

The statewide increases in farmland value are buoyed by the more metropolitan northeast Ohio, he said. Prices vary widely across northwest Ohio.

Mike Murry, general manager of Whalen Realty & Auction in Neapolis, predicted land prices in Fulton County will hold steady at $3,100 to $3,400 an acre. But in Williams County, immediately to the west, where land is often as much as $1,000 an acre less, he predicted prices will rise.

His reasoning: Farmers who sell high-priced land near cities and want to buy elsewhere will go to places such as Williams County where prices are lower, thus boosting prices there.

Recent price increases have skipped some local areas.

In southern Wood County, where many farmers suffered several consecutive bad years - including drought last year - prices fell to $1,800 to $2,300 an acre, said Keith Bradley, a Bowling Green auctioneer. Because yields this year were good, he predicted an increase for 2004.

Across the United States, the value of farm real estate increased in 2003 in all states except Kansas, where prices were unchanged, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. It lists the 2003 average price in the continental United States at $1,720 a tillable acre, up 4 percent from 2002.

In the Northern Plains, the average is $738 per acre. In the Pacific states, the average is $3,720.

Ohio s prices are among the highest in the Corn Belt. For tillable land only, the state is $50 an acre less than in Illinois, where it is listed at $2,900. But for what the statistics service calls farm real estate, which includes buildings, woods, pasture, and road rights of way, Ohio s value is the highest in the Corn Belt at $2,800 an acre. Illinois is next at $2,770, followed by Indiana at $2,750.