A combination of high commodity prices, a record $66 billion harvest, low interest rates and surging rural property values lifted prime farmland returns to their highest in at least six years over the past financial year.

Outperforming the Australian sharemarket, which delivered a 27.8 per cent total return over the 2021 financial year (the ASX 200’s best result in over 30 years), farmland used to grow crops and graze livestock returned a whopping 46.3 per cent, according to the June quarter update of the Australian Farmland Index.