Characterizing Foreign Investment in U.S. Agricultural Land, 2022

In 2022 foreign investors, including long-term leaseholders, held an interest in 43.4 million acres of U.S. agricultural land. This represents 3.4 percent of all privately held agricultural land and nearly 2 percent of all land in the United States. This report compares foreign-owned and long-term foreign-leased U.S. agricultural land held in 2022 using data collected through mandatory reporting requirements set forth in the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA). Foreign-held, long-term leases (i.e., 10 years or more) accounted for roughly one-third (32.5 percent) of foreign-held U.S. agricultural land as of December 31, 2022, up from roughly 20 percent in 2017. This report also identifies important differences between foreign-owned and long-term foreign-leased agricultural land in the United States in terms of its use, location, size, and other characteristics. A much greater share of long-term foreign-leased agricultural land is associated with renewable energy development compared to foreign-owned land (85 percent versus 2 percent). A much smaller share of long-term foreign leaseholds (less than 10 percent) is associated with a change in the agricultural producer (operator) compared with foreign purchases of agricultural land. The findings in this report indicate that foreign leases of agricultural land are more likely to result in dual use (i.e., agriculture and renewable energy) thereby providing an additional income stream to owner-operators. The results also show that around 97 percent of foreign land leaseholders indicated they did not intend to take the land out of agricultural usage