Who Owns America’s Farmland?

For most of its history, U.S. farmland existed almost entirely outside mainstream investment conversations. Ownership was largely multigenerational and relationship-driven, with farmland attracting relatively little attention from the institutional capital that flowed more freely into equities, fixed income, and commercial real estate.

That has changed materially over the past two decades as institutional investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals increasingly recognized farmland’s potential as a long-duration real asset.

The names at the top of today’s ownership rankings tell much of that story. Understanding what drew these investors to the asset class, how they built their positions, and what the long-term performance record suggests provides important context for investors evaluating farmland within a broader real asset allocation today.

Key Takeaways

• Family farms still account for approximately 96% of U.S. farms and 90% of agricultural land, but the range of investors participating alongside them has expanded significantly.
• Investors including Stan Kroenke, John Malone, Ted Turner, and Bill Gates built large-scale agricultural land positions through long-duration, off-market strategies — not passive accumulation.
• Foreign investors hold approximately 3.6% of privately held U.S. agricultural land, dominated by Canada and Western Europe. China accounts for less than 1%.
• Historically accessible only to institutions and large private investors, farmland is increasingly available to accredited individuals through specialized investment platforms, private funds, and REIT structures.
• The NCREIF Farmland Index has generated annualized returns of 9.8% since 1991, with historical volatility roughly one-third that of U.S. equities.

Who Actually Owns U.S. Agricultural Land

USDA Economic Research Service data shows that family farms account for approximately 96% of U.S. farms, 90% of agricultural land, and 83% of total agricultural production value. That agricultural land includes a broad mix of cropland, permanent cropland, pastureland, and ranchland across the United States. Multigenerational family ownership remains the foundation of U.S. agriculture, with much of the country’s productive farmland and other agricultural land still passed between generations, managed locally, and infrequently transacted on open markets.

At the same time, generational transitions, aging landowners, and evolving ownership preferences have gradually increased the amount of agricultural land entering the market over time. Alongside that shift, the range of investors participating in the asset class has expanded meaningfully.

Today, U.S. agricultural land is held across a broad spectrum of owner types, including:

• Multigenerational farming families, which continue to own and operate the majority of agricultural acreage in the country
• High-net-worth individuals and family offices, including investors such as Bill Gates, John Malone, Stan Kroenke, and Ted Turner, who have accumulated significant positions in ranchland, timberland, and productive farmland
• Institutional investment managers, including pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, sovereign funds, and foundations, which have steadily increased farmland allocations over the past two decades as part of broader real asset portfolios
• Publicly traded farmland REITs, which have introduced a degree of market accessibility and liquidity to the asset class
• Specialized farmland investment platforms and private investment vehicles, which have expanded access to professionally managed farmland investments for accredited investors over the past decade
• Foreign and multinational investors, whose U.S. agricultural land holdings have attracted increasing regulatory scrutiny in recent years
• Vertically integrated agricultural operators, which own land as part of broader food production and supply chain strategies

Together, these groups have contributed to making U.S. agricultural land one of the more structurally complex real asset categories in the country — and one increasingly shaped by long-duration capital, operational expertise, and strategic ownership considerations tied to food production, water access, and finite land supply.

The Capital That Recognized Agricultural Land First

The 2026 Land Report 100, the definitive annual ranking of private land ownership in the United States, reflects how significantly agricultural land ownership has concentrated among some of the country’s most sophisticated long-duration investors and family offices.

Stan Kroenke currently holds the top position with more than 2.7 million acres, following his late-2025 acquisition of nearly 1 million acres of New Mexico ranchland — the largest single land purchase in the United States in more than a decade. He is followed by the Emmerson family with 2.44 million acres, Liberty Media chairman John Malone with 2.2 million acres, and Ted Turner with 2 million acres. Bill Gates ranks 44th overall with 275,000 acres but remains the largest private owner of U.S. farmland specifically.

These are not passive positions assembled for prestige. Each portfolio reflects a deliberate, long-horizon thesis about the value of productive agricultural land as a real asset — built through off-market relationships, professional operational management, and the patience to hold across full economic cycles. Kroenke’s holdings — including the historic Waggoner Ranch in Texas, the 560,000-acre Q Creek Ranch in Wyoming, and the Broken O Ranch in Montana — were assembled largely off-market over three decades. Malone similarly accumulated more than 2 million acres of ranch and timberland across nine states, with his most consequential single transaction — the 2011 purchase of over 1 million acres of timberland in Maine and New Hampshire — executed entirely outside public markets. Malone summarized the philosophy behind long-duration land ownership succinctly: “They’re not making any more of it.”

Turner, whose passing this year closed a significant chapter in the history of American land stewardship, was among the earliest high-profile investors to demonstrate how large-scale agricultural land could function as both a productive operating business and a long-duration real asset. His 13 ranches spanning Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, and other western states generated revenue through bison operations, hospitality, ecotourism, and vertically integrated agricultural businesses long before those concepts became widely discussed within institutional investing circles. Malone has credited Turner directly with shaping his own approach to land accumulation.

Foreign Ownership and Regulatory Scrutiny

Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has attracted significant political attention in recent years, driven largely by concerns about Chinese-linked acquisitions near sensitive military infrastructure. That narrative, while not without basis, obscures a more nuanced picture that investors evaluating the asset class should understand clearly.

According to the most recent USDA data compiled under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, foreign investors held an interest in over 46 million acres of U.S. agricultural land as of December 31, 2024 — representing 3.6% of all privately held agricultural land in the United States. That figure has grown steadily over the past decade, but the composition of that ownership is routinely mischaracterized in public discourse.

The dominant foreign holders of U.S. agricultural land are not adversarial nations. Canada leads all foreign owners by a substantial margin, holding approximately 15.4 million acres — roughly a third of all foreign-owned agricultural land in the country. Investors from the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany collectively hold additional millions of acres, with those five nations accounting for approximately 62% of all foreign-owned U.S. agricultural land. The majority of those holdings are concentrated in timber and forestland, and in long-term leases tied to wind and renewable energy development — not productive cropland. Forestland accounts for 47% of all reported foreign-held acreage, with cropland representing 29% and pasture and other agricultural land comprising the remainder.

China, which has dominated the political conversation on this topic, accounts for less than 1% of total foreign-owned U.S. agricultural land — a figure that has declined in recent years following USDA data corrections and the unwinding of certain Chinese-linked positions. The legitimate national security concerns surrounding Chinese acquisitions have centered on proximity to military installations and sensitive infrastructure, not on the scale of agricultural land control.

The regulatory framework governing foreign ownership has nonetheless tightened meaningfully. The Trump administration released a National Farm Security Action Plan in July 2025 and launched a new online AFIDA reporting portal in January 2026 as part of a broader effort to strengthen enforcement and increase transparency around foreign-held agricultural land. At the state level, 24 states now restrict foreign ownership of agricultural land in some form, while 15 states have implemented reporting requirements for foreign transactions.

For investors, the more instructive dimension of the foreign ownership data is what it implies about the asset class itself. The fact that Canadian pension funds, European timber companies, sovereign wealth vehicles, and institutional managers from allied nations have been systematically accumulating U.S. agricultural land for decades is not a warning sign — it is further evidence that productive American farmland is recognized globally as a scarce, long-duration real asset. The competition for quality U.S. agricultural land extends well beyond domestic investors, and the structural scarcity argument that underpins the domestic investment thesis applies equally to the international capital that has been reaching the same conclusion, through different channels, for the same reasons.

Farmland as a Distinct Institutional Asset Class

While many of the country’s largest private landowners accumulated diversified agricultural land portfolios spanning ranchland, timberland, and conservation properties, farmland itself increasingly emerged as a distinct institutional investment category over the same period.

On the farmland side specifically, Gates constructed one of the most closely studied institutional-scale farmland portfolios in the country. Through Cascade Investment LLC, Gates accumulated approximately 275,000 acres of active U.S. farmland across nearly 20 states, with major concentrations in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Nebraska — assembled in part through a large block acquisition from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the purchase of the 100 Circles Farm in Washington State, two transactions totaling more than $690 million.

The holdings are managed entirely by professional agricultural operators. When questioned publicly about the rationale behind the investments, Gates emphasized the operational and long-term nature of the strategy: “I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. There isn’t some grand scheme involved — all these decisions are made by a professional investment team.”

What Three Decades of Farmland Performance Data Shows

Over the past several decades, farmland increasingly evolved into a distinct institutional asset class with a documented long-term performance record.

The NCREIF Farmland Index, which measures the quarterly investment performance of institutional-quality farmland properties held primarily by pension funds and tax-exempt institutions, is the primary benchmark for the asset class. Since inception in 1991, the index has generated annualized returns of 9.8%, demonstrating meaningful resilience across multiple economic cycles.^[1]

Equally significant has been farmland’s historical volatility profile. Annualized volatility has historically measured approximately 6.9%, compared to 17.4% for U.S. equities and 18.6% for public REITs — characteristics that helped attract institutional allocators seeking differentiated return drivers and lower correlation to traditional financial markets.^[2]

A complete picture requires acknowledging the recent period honestly. The NCREIF Total Farmland Index posted a loss of 1.0% in 2024 — its first negative annual return in over three decades — driven by capital depreciation in permanent crop categories facing commodity pricing pressure. Institutional managers broadly characterized the downturn as a cyclical correction concentrated in specific crop segments, particularly tree nuts and other permanent crops, rather than a structural deterioration of the broader farmland investment thesis. Importantly, the income component of farmland returns remained positive throughout the period.

Viewed across the broader market, U.S. farmland values grew at an average annual rate of 5.8% from 2019 to 2024, according to USDA data — a period that encompassed a global pandemic, elevated inflation and significant equity market volatility.

The positions built by serious long-duration investors did not generate headlines during that period. They compounded.

The Rise of Publicly Traded Farmland

Alongside the private institutional farmland market, a publicly traded segment of the farmland market has emerged that has brought meaningful visibility — and a degree of accessibility — to the asset class.

Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI) is the largest publicly traded farmland REIT in the United States, owning and managing farmland across major U.S. agricultural regions with a primary focus on row crop properties including corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton. FPI’s portfolio spans major agricultural regions across the American heartland and has provided public market investors with direct public market exposure to agricultural land ownership and lease income.

Gladstone Land Corporation (LAND) takes a different approach, concentrating its portfolio on permanent crops and fresh produce farmland — berry farms, orchards, and vegetable-producing regions, with significant holdings in California and the Pacific Northwest. Gladstone's focus on higher-value crop categories reflects the operational and return differentiation that exists within farmland as an asset class.

Both REIT structures have played an important role in bringing farmland into mainstream investment conversations, offering liquidity, transparency, and regular dividend income that private farmland vehicles do not provide. They represent a meaningful structural development in how the asset class is accessed.

At the same time, publicly traded farmland vehicles carry the volatility characteristics of public equity markets and reflect a meaningfully different risk and return profile than the private institutional ownership structures that have historically defined the asset class’s long-term performance record. From 2014 through 2025, the NCREIF Farmland Index generated an average annual return of approximately 6.6% with 6.0% volatility, compared to approximately 0.6% annualized returns and 27.8% volatility for Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI), and 1.1% annualized returns with 46.5% volatility for Gladstone Land Corporation (LAND).^[3]

How Farmland Access Expanded Beyond Institutions

Over the past decade, the infrastructure surrounding farmland investing expanded meaningfully. Specialized farmland investment platforms, private investment vehicles, tenancy-in-common structures that facilitate 1031 exchanges, and professionally managed farmland funds increasingly opened portions of the asset class to accredited investors who historically would not have participated directly in farmland ownership. FarmTogether emerged during that period as part of a broader shift toward more professionalized farmland investment infrastructure, reporting standards, and investor access models.

That evolution helped broaden the investor base participating in farmland while also accelerating the professionalization of sourcing, underwriting, farm management oversight, and agricultural reporting standards across parts of the market.

At the same time, broader access did not eliminate the operational complexity that has historically defined farmland investing. Crop selection, water availability, regional economics, operator quality, and long-term farm management remain central drivers of performance differentiation within the asset class.

Why the Asset Class Has Historically Rewarded Expertise Over Scale

One reason farmland has historically remained difficult for many investors to access is that the asset class rewards operational expertise and sourcing discipline as much as capital itself.

Farmland is not a monolithic category. A permanent crop orchard in California’s Central Valley, a row crop operation in the Iowa corn belt, and a produce farm in the Salinas Valley each carry materially different return drivers, water availability considerations, labor requirements, biological risks, and operational cost structures. Soil quality, irrigation infrastructure, crop demand trends, proximity to processing and transportation networks, and the caliber of farm management can all materially influence long-term performance in ways broad index data does not fully capture.

That complexity has historically created meaningful barriers to entry. The investors and institutions that built the most durable farmland positions generally did so through deep regional relationships, specialized sourcing networks, professional operational management, and the patience to hold through full agricultural and economic cycles.

In many respects, that operational complexity helps explain why institutional farmland investing historically remained concentrated among specialized operators, agricultural managers, pension-backed investment firms, and investors with deep agricultural sourcing capabilities rather than capital alone.

The Investment Case in Context

The investors who built some of the most significant agricultural land positions over the past three decades were not reacting to a short-term trend. Across pension funds, endowments, family offices, and private land portfolios, agricultural land increasingly attracted attention as a scarce, long-duration real asset connected to food production, water access, and finite land supply.

Within that broader landscape, farmland increasingly emerged as one of the more institutionalized segments of the agricultural land market, supported by a measurable performance record, professional farm management infrastructure, and expanding investor access.

Today, the infrastructure surrounding farmland investing looks materially different than it did two decades ago. Public REITs, private investment platforms, professionally managed farmland funds, and tenancy-in-common structures that facilitate 1031 exchanges have all expanded the ways accredited investors can participate in the asset class.

Even so, the characteristics that historically differentiated successful farmland investors have remained remarkably consistent: patience, operational rigor, disciplined underwriting, and a long-term ownership mindset.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the largest private farmland owners in the United States?

According to the 2026 Land Report 100, the largest private landowners in the United States include Stan Kroenke with over 2.7 million acres, John Malone with 2.2 million acres, and the late Ted Turner with 2 million acres. On the farmland side specifically, Bill Gates is the largest private owner of U.S. farmland with approximately 275,000 acres held across nearly 20 states through his private investment firm Cascade Investment LLC. These portfolios were built over decades through off-market transactions and professional agricultural management — not speculative land purchases.

Why have billionaire investors like Bill Gates, John Malone, Stan Kroenke, and Ted Turner accumulated large agricultural land positions?

Each of these investors has approached agricultural land as a long-duration real asset — finite in supply, productive in nature, and historically resilient across economic cycles. Malone has described the rationale simply: "They're not making any more of it." Gates has emphasized the operational focus of his farmland holdings, noting that all investment decisions are made by a professional agricultural management team. Turner demonstrated decades ago that large-scale ranchland could function as both a working business and a sound long-term capital allocation. The common thread across all of these portfolios is a conviction that productive land connected to food, water, and finite supply is a strategic asset worth holding across generations.

How has farmland performed as an investment historically?

The NCREIF Farmland Index, the primary benchmark for institutional-quality farmland, has generated annualized returns of 9.8% since its inception in 1991. Equally notable is its volatility profile — historically approximately 6.9% annualized, compared to 17.4% for U.S. equities and 18.6% for public REITs. U.S. farmland values also grew at an average annual rate of 5.8% from 2019 to 2024, a period that included a global pandemic, elevated inflation, and significant equity market volatility. The NCREIF index did post its first negative annual return in over three decades in 2024, driven by cyclical weakness in permanent crop categories, though the income component of returns remained positive throughout that period.

Can individual investors invest in farmland?

Yes, though the options vary meaningfully in structure, risk profile, and return characteristics. Publicly traded farmland REITs such as Farmland Partners (FPI) and Gladstone Land Corporation (LAND) offer liquid, exchange-traded exposure to agricultural land ownership. Specialized farmland investment platforms and private funds have expanded access further for accredited investors, offering exposure to professionally managed farmland portfolios that more closely resemble the private institutional ownership structures that have historically generated the asset class's long-term performance record. Tenancy-in-common structures that facilitate 1031 exchanges represent another avenue for certain investors. The appropriate structure depends on an investor's liquidity needs, time horizon, and appetite for operational complexity.

Is foreign ownership of U.S. farmland a threat to food security?

The data suggests the risk is more narrowly defined than public discourse implies. According to the most recent USDA AFIDA report, foreign investors hold approximately 3.6% of all privately held U.S. agricultural land — with Canada accounting for roughly a third of that total, followed by the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Those five allied nations collectively account for approximately 62% of all foreign-owned U.S. agricultural land, with the majority of holdings concentrated in timber and renewable energy leases rather than productive cropland. China accounts for less than 1% of foreign-owned U.S. agricultural land. Legitimate national security concerns have centered on specific acquisitions near military installations, which federal and state regulators have moved to address through tightened AFIDA enforcement and new state-level restrictions. At the asset class level, the sustained interest of international institutional capital in U.S. farmland is more instructive as a signal of global demand for a scarce productive resource than as a cause for concern.