According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest land holdings report, roughly 46 million acres of crop, pasture and forest lands were held by investors from outside of the United States, marking a 3.6% increase from 2022 to 2023.
Forest land accounted for 48 percent of all reported foreign-held acreage, cropland for 29 percent, pasture and other agricultural land for 21 percent, and non-agricultural land for 2 percent. Foreign holdings of U.S. agricultural land increased modestly from 2012 through 2017, increasing an average of 0.6 million acres per year. Since 2017, foreign holdings have increased an average of nearly 2.6 million acres annually, ranging from 1.5 million acres to over 3.4 million acres per year.
In 2023, total foreign ownership of U.S. farmland increased by 1.58 million acres, driven largely by European investments in renewable energy such as solar and wind farms. At the same time, Chinese investments decreased 27%, or 106,599 acres, over the period amid national security concerns regarding how much American farmland the country owns.
According to the report, Texas has the largest amount of foreign-held U.S. agricultural land with over 5.6 million acres. Maine has the second largest amount of foreign-held agricultural acres, with just under 3.5 million. Colorado has the third largest amount of foreign-held agricultural land with 2.5 million acres. The majority of foreign-held agricultural land in Texas and Maine consists of forest land, while cropland is most important in Colorado.
Largest Foreign Landowners:
Canada - 33 percent
Netherlands - 11 percent
Italy - 6 percent
UK - 6 percent
Germany - 5 percent
