Curiously, it was not until early this decade that the institutional money even noticed said bubble, something he discussed in October of 2010 when we profiled TIAA-CREF's investment in this particular asset class. We are talking of course about farmland.

And yet, like all other bubbles - be they the result of retail euphoria or central bank rigging - this one too must come to a close, and as the WSJ reports, the first crack in the farmland bubble are appearing, after farmland values declined in parts of the Midwest for the first time in decades last year "reflecting a cooling in the market driven by two years of bumper crops and sharply lower grain prices, according to Federal Reserve reports on Thursday."