Wichita ? Kansas was the only state in which farm real estate values did not increase from 2002 to 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Thursday.

The figures, which measure the value of all land and buildings on farms as of Jan. 1, averaged $1,270 per acre nationwide, the agency said in its annual tally. That is up 5 percent from the previous year.

Dollar values and percentage increases along the East Coast and Great Lakes are the largest in the country. (The report excluded Alaska and Hawaii, as well as American Indian reservation land.)

The $60-per-acre average increase as of Jan. 1 continued an upward trend across the nation that began in 1987.

Despite severe drought in several states, price competition from rapid urbanization and development has more than offset any downward pressures on land values from the poor agricultural returns, the USDA said.

“It looks to me like there could be a little bit of a rude awakening potentially for some lenders that were expecting large rises in land values, and now we don’t see it,” Kansas State University ag economist Terry Kastens said. “It is going to make them more cautious on their lending on real estate.”

The USDA reported the average value of farms in Kansas for 2003 at $620 an acre, the same as a year ago. In 2001, the state average was $610 an acre. By comparison, it was $590 in 2000 and $580 in 1999.

Missouri farm real estate values rose 5.3 percent to $1,600 an acre.

The numbers for Kansas this year fell far short of expectations by the state’s bankers, who are surveyed each quarter by the Federal Reserve Bank to determine land values.

In the last two quarters of 2002, the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City, Mo., had been projecting average increases in Kansas land values — between 6 and 7 percent, Kastens said.

“It has been fairly flat, and that is primarily due to drought,” Kastens said. “This is now actually the fourth year of pretty substantial drought in parts of Kansas.”

Land values might have fallen in the state, Kastens said, had it not been for upward price pressure from nonagricultural land uses such as urban development and fee-based or leased hunting.

“It is a little bit surprising to me, but it is not out of line. We weren’t looking for that big 6 to 7 percent increase the bankers were looking for,” Kastens said.

The lower real estate values are not expected to substantially affect tax values, he said, because in Kansas those are primarily determined from a complex formula based on use values.

Those values are determined mostly from farm income rather than market values.

The USDA report also estimated the average value of Kansas cropland at $690 an acre, again the same as last year. Irrigated cropland in the state was valued at $1,100 an acre while nonirrigated cropland was valued at $650 an acre. Neither showed an increase from a year ago.

Pasture land in Kansas was valued at an average $400 an acre, unchanged in the last three years.

Nationwide, cropland values rose 4.2 percent to $1,720 an acre, while pasture values rose an average 5.1 percent to $618 an acre, the USDA said.