Nearly every state in the country has seen an increase in foreign interests owning farmland since 2014, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.<\/p>\n
Foreign countries and interests own more than 45 million acres of farmland in the country, which accounts<\/a> for just over 3 percent of the nation\u2019s private farmland, but the number of agricultural acres owned by foreign interests increased by 67 percent from 2014 to 2023.<\/p>\n The USDA tracks foreign investors \u201cwho acquire, transfer, or hold an interest in\u201d U.S. agricultural land.<\/p>\n While Texas, Colorado and Maine have the largest amount of foreign-owned agricultural land in the U.S., other states have seen dramatic increases in the past 10 years.<\/p>\n Foreign-owned farmland in Nebraska increased five times since 2014 \u2014 from more than 153,000 acres to 936,000 in 2023. In Oklahoma, foreign-owned ag land has nearly quadrupled in the same time \u2014 increasing from more than 371,000 to 1.8 million over that same time period.<\/p>\n Half of the states have imposed laws that ban foreign ownership, but approaches vary by state<\/a>. Congress has proposed specific bans on companies with ties to China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n North Korea owns no U.S. farmland while Iranian and Russian interests hold roughly 3,000 acres as of 2023, the majority of which is owned by Iran, according to USDA data.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n China only owns a sliver of land in the U.S., according to USDA data. China owns less than 1 percent compared to Canada, which owns one-third of farmland in the country.<\/p>\n Chinese-owned companies held more than 277,000 acres of U.S. farmland in 2023, with the bulk controlled by Syngenta Seeds, Smithfield Foods \u2014 a pork processor \u2014 and a private solar panel firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking earlier this year at the Ag Leaders dinner in Iowa, an annual gathering of agricultural industry, state commissioners and federal officials, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said<\/a> her agency and President Donald Trump are targeting Chinese-owned farmland bans, calling it a threat to national security and economic prosperity.\u00a0<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Investigate Midwest<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>. <\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSponsored Content on AG<\/strong>Daily\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Foreign-owned](\"https:\/\/www.agdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/bg-foreign-owned-farmland.jpg\")
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