Foreign investment in U.S. agricultural land is a big topic. USDA’s latest research, based on 2021 data, shows over 40 million acres of American agricultural land are owned by foreign investors and companies. This corresponds to 3.1 percent of all privately-held agricultural land and 1.8 percent of all land in the U.S. Canadian investors own the largest portion of foreign-held agricultural land with 31 percent, or 12.8 million acres of the total, and 0.97 percent of all U.S. agricultural land.
Many of the current concerns center around China. According to the latest data, China is ranked 18th in ownership of U.S. agricultural land with 383,000 acres. That’s less than one percent of total foreign-owned U.S. ag land and only three-hundredths of one percent of all ag land in the U.S. It reflects a total area of about one-third the size of Rhode Island or that of an average Ohio county.
(From the National Association of Farm Broadcasters)