Rural Land Values and Land Diversification

This is a research briefing that covers two key areas: how land is valued, and what land ownership diversification means to different stakeholders involved in land. A focus group with land valuers was conducted to discover that the means of valuing land is rapidly changing due to the sudden interest in natural capital payments (i.e. carbon credits), with factors in upland farms and estates becoming redundant (e.g. sporting bag, agricultural subsidies or cost per head) as potential for forestry becomes dominant. Roundtable discussions were held with a range of stakeholders to understand what land diversification means to them, with a range of different views being expressed. Importantly, land ownership diversification was seen to be hard to achieve when land values are currently historically high and pricing smaller players out of the land market.