Drought Now Covers 81% of the Country — But Pastureland Values Are Still Climbing

The fastest deterioration runs from Texas northeast through the middle and lower Mississippi Valley, while dry conditions have also accelerated farther north. Arkansas reached 92% moderate-or-worse drought, Colorado 88%, and Minnesota 71%, according to this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor figures reported by Global Agriculture.

The breadth matters because it reaches row-crop country in the final weeks before corn and soybean harvest. Late-season dryness can still reduce weight and yield even where crops are mature, while the same pattern removes forage from pastures and delays fall growth needed for winter feed.

USDA’s Sept. 13 Crop Progress survey rated the 18-state corn crop 6% very poor, 11% poor, 26% fair, 44% good, and 13% excellent. Corn was 86% dented, ahead of the five-year average of 84%, while 8% had been harvested, compared with a five-year average of 6%.

Those numbers show producers moving quickly, but they do not remove the risk. Kansas reported 74% of topsoil moisture short or very short, with corn, sorghum, and pasture ratings declining together. The problem is therefore broader than one harvest: the same missing moisture affects grain yield, fall grazing, and the forage reserve livestock producers carry into winter.

South Dakota provides the clearest measure of the apparent contradiction. Pastureland values rose 15.9% in 2026 in SDSU Extension’s Farm Real Estate Survey even as 61% of the state’s pasture was rated poor or very poor and three-quarters of topsoil moisture was short or very short.

Record cattle prices and scarce land help explain why. With 46% of U.S. cattle inventory now in at least moderate drought, compared with 16% a year ago, productive grazing ground is more valuable precisely because available forage is shrinking. Ranchers who intend to keep cattle need acres that can still carry them, creating competition for the better ground.

South Dakota News Watch also reported how management is changing. A Newell rancher described combining longstanding ranch practices with newer soil-health techniques to keep pace with less predictable rainfall. Across the state’s roughly 23 million acres of pasture and grazing land, parcel quality and location matter enormously: 2025 pasture rents ranged from $6.80 to $73 per acre, according to the SD Ag Land Income Tracker.

For landowners comparing conditions or options, PlaceAcre’s South Dakota land hub provides state-specific context.

FCSAmerica’s Terrain Q3 2026 outlook reports that more than three-quarters of the U.S. beef cow herd sits under some level of drought. It expects herd expansion to be small, if it occurs at all, heading into 2027 as limited feed pushes some producers toward culling rather than rebuilding.

That does not mean all grazing land rises together. It means fewer cattle overall can coexist with intense competition for pasture that remains productive. Water, grass condition, stocking history, access, and lease availability can therefore separate one parcel’s performance sharply from another’s during the same drought.

USDA NASS’s 2026 Land Values Summary placed U.S. farm real estate at $4,500 per acre, up 3.4% year over year. Cropland reached $6,020 per acre, while pastureland nationally averaged $2,000 per acre, up 4.2%.

South Dakota’s 15.9% pastureland increase ran far ahead of that national pasture gain. The gap underscores the uneven nature of this market: national averages describe the direction, but local cattle economics, forage scarcity, rainfall, and parcel quality determine how drought and value interact on the ground.

Four signals will clarify what this late-season drought ultimately means. USDA’s next full Crop Production report will show how much corn and soybean output the dryness cost. Weekly U.S. Drought Monitor releases will show whether the 81.1% coverage keeps climbing through harvest.

State surveys will reveal whether South Dakota’s drought-plus-rising-values pattern appears elsewhere. Finally, fall and winter moisture will provide the first evidence for the 2027 grazing season — and whether cattle producers can begin rebuilding or must postpone expansion again.