Land, Land Use and Competitiveness
Land costs account for a significant proportion of the total costs for many agricultural products that are traded internationally, especially for the major grain crops that the U.S. exports in competition with several other countries. For owner-operators, a common form of tenure in the U.S. and most other countries, most land costs are implicit and involve few cash outlays, i.e., are opportunity costs that are important in the long-run but that may not affect production decisions in the short-run.