| Chart of the Day |
| OCTOBER 28, 2026 |
PROPERTY & RIGHTS • LAND OWNERSHIP |
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| Foreign Investors Own 47 Million Acres of American Farmland. In 2010, It Was 25 Million. |
| The acreage nearly doubled while everyone was arguing about China... which owns less than 1% of it. |
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| Total U.S. agricultural land held by foreign investors, in millions of acres, as reported through the AFIDA disclosure program. |
| Source: USDA Farm Service Agency (AFIDA), 2024 |
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| You’ve probably seen the headlines about China buying up American farmland. Members of Congress hold hearings about it. States pass laws to block it. Last year, the USDA announced plans to pursue legislative and executive action to ban farmland purchases by Chinese nationals and other foreign adversaries. But nobody mentions the bigger number. |
| Since 2010, total foreign-held U.S. agricultural land has nearly doubled. From 25 million acres to over 47 million. That’s an area larger than the entire state of Georgia. And most of that growth happened in just the last seven years. |
| Now here’s what most people get wrong. They hear “foreign farmland buyers” and think China. China holds about 248,000 acres. That’s less than 1% of the foreign total. The real buyers? European investors collectively hold the most U.S. agricultural land, through a mix of timber, renewable energy, and farming operations. Canada is close behind with massive timber company holdings. |
| The acceleration is what gets me. From 2012 to 2017, foreign holdings crept up about 600,000 acres a year. Since 2017, that pace jumped to over 2.4 million acres a year—four times faster. Wind and solar leases count as agricultural land interests under federal reporting rules. That’s where most of the surge is coming from. |
| Whether it’s timber, energy leases, or actual cropland, the trend points one direction. Cropland specifically went from 4.1 million foreign-held acres in 2010 to 13.7 million today. That’s a 234% increase. And that’s the land that actually grows your food. |
