A sought-after patch of north Norfolk farmland sold for a staggering £75,000 per acre last year - illustrating the huge variation in market prices, said agents.

The price of farmland, and the competing pressures on it, were discussed at a farmers' meeting at Wymondham Rugby Club, part of a series of spring seminars run by rural agency Brown&Co.

The firm traded more than 4,000 acres of farmland in 2023, with average arable values of £10,158 per acre - up from £9,570 five years earlier.

But Sarah Lucas, a senior associate in the land agency team in Norwich, said these figures "hide the true picture" of price volatility, with values typically ranging from £7,500 to £15,000 per acre.

The most extreme example was 1.75 acres of land at Salthouse, which had initially fetched £107,500, or about £61,000 per acre, at an online auction in 2021.

"At the time we had a very happy client, but we were slightly gobsmacked, thinking it was possibly a bit of a fluke," she said. 

"Then the purchaser put on a couple of beehives, put down a wildflower meadow, then they approached us last year and said: Could we help? 

"But although the caveat was that we certainly could not guarantee the same price again, it sold for £132,000, being about £75,000 per acre - so not a bad little investment."

The meeting was told that farmers, private buyers and institutional investors are still active in the land market, but 2023 saw a "notable increase in environmental buyers" seeking to plant trees or take advantage of new incentives and offsetting schemes such as nutrient neutrality or biodiversity net gain.

Those opportunities were among the other topics discussed at the seminar, which also explored Defra's sustainable farming incentive (SFI), rural development opportunities and the importance of budgeting and cashflow planning to inform cropping decisions and the timing of purchases to avoid unnecessary overdraft debts.

Andrew Fundell, an agri-business consultant and partner at Brown&Co, said he could not recall "such a period of turmoil in the industry" during more than 30 years with the company.

"Many things are being asked of you," he said. "You are being asked to answer climate change, adapt to increasingly volatile weather, to reduce emissions, to sequester carbon, to manage water, enhance nature, provide housing and relevant infrastructure and still provide food - all of this coming from a finite area of land, at a time of growing risks.

"If nothing else, increased competition for land use highlights the need to answer the farming productivity challenge. It is business efficiency and effectiveness, to produce more from less."