Foreign ownership of US farmland increased by 1.58 million acres in 2023, according to the latest data released by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The USDA’s recently issued land holdings report to the end of December 2023 indicates that 45.8 million acres of crop, pasture and forest lands were held by investors from outside the US.
That amounts to a 3.6 percent increase from 2022 to 2023.
The increase has been driven primarily by investments linked to renewable energy projects, according to an analysis by the American Farm Bureau.
The report also shows a decrease in acreage owned by Chinese-based entities, reflecting shifting patterns in foreign land acquisition.
US legislation requires foreign entities report purchases, sales and interests in US agricultural land to USDA, according to the American Farm Bureau. Non-compliance can result in fines up to 25pc of the land’s market value.
The USDA’s latest AFIDA report shows that 96.39 percent of totally privately held US agricultural land is the hands of US owners, with only 3.61 percent or 45.85 million acres owned by foreign investors.
Canadian investors own the largest portion of foreign-held US agricultural land with 33.5 percent (15.35 million acres) of the total and 1.21 percent of all US agricultural land.
Following Canada, investors from the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany own 0.41 percent (5.2 million acres), 0.22 percent (2.7 million acres), 0.11 percent (2.6 million acres) and 0.20 percent (2.5 million acres) of US agricultural land, respectively.
Since 2010, reported foreign-held agricultural land in the U.S. has grown by 21 million acres, an 85 percent increase.
The five years from 2018 to 2023 saw 101% increase in foreign ownership of cropland, a 28 percent increase in forestland, a 15 percent increase in pastureland and a 38 per increase in other agricultural land.
By state, Texas had the largest quantity of foreign-held U.S. agricultural land at 5.7 million acres making up 3.6 percent of the state’s 158 million acres of privately held agricultural land.
The American Farm Bureau’s analysis also estimates the extent of foreign interest in US agricultural land for renewable energy development, finding that Canadian investors accounted for the largest share at 5.5 million acres, followed by Italian investors with 2.57 million acres and Portuguese investors with 1.2 million acres. Notably, of the top 10 nations in this category, only one — Australia — is located outside Europe.
In 2023, over 70 percent of the acreage linked to renewable energy companies was cropland, with 22 percent classified as pastureland, 6 percent as other agricultural land, and the remaining 2 percent as forestland.
The People’s Republic of China’s holding of US land decreased by 11 percent from 2022 to 2023 with a total of 277,336 acres.
That also marks a 106,599-acre or 27 percent decline from the 2021 peak of 383,935 acres.
The increase observed between 2012 and 2013 is primarily tied to the acquisition of a U.S.-based meat processing company, which now accounts for nearly half of all Chinese investor-held acreage.
The AFB said the subsequent decline between 2021 and 2023 stems from two key factors: a reduction in holdings by a Chinese billionaire who had invested in Southwest Texas for a renewable energy project, and the USDA’s reclassification of acreage originally attributed to Chinese investors but later confirmed to be owned by a US land asset management company with operations in Chinese markets.
To read the full analysis on the American Farm Bureau website click here
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