Concerns About China Buying American Agricultural Land May Be Overblown

During a trip to Beijing in mid-May, 2026, President Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he was not in favor of restricting Chinese ownership of American farmland. “Do you want to see farm prices drop and farmers lose a lot of money?” Trump asked. “Then take that out of the market. They’ve had a lot of land for a long time.”

Trump’s comment triggered a new wave of concerns about China buying up American farmland. “The purchase of U.S. farmland is a threat to our national security and our food security,” Wisconsin farmer Brian Reisinger told Newsweek.

Should American farmers be worried? Are Chinese investments driving up land prices? Probably not, according to the most recent report by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, “Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land Through December 31, 2024.” 

Using data collected through the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA), FSA reports that 46.3 million acres of US agricultural land (5 percent of a total 911 million acres) were foreign-owned in 2024, a 3 percent increase from 2023. Of those 46.3 million acres, 34 percent were owned by Canada, 10 percent by the Netherlands, 6 percent by Germany, 6 percent by Italy, and 6 percent by the United Kingdom.

At least 10.6 million acres of this land isn’t actually owned by foreign entities at all. It’s only being leased to “foreign-owned wind turbine companies” for ten-year or longer leases. Again, Canada holds the majority of these leases, followed by Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

China, it turns out, is a relatively minor player in the foreign land ownership market. Chinese investors only owned 247,659 acres at the end of 2024, less than 1 percent of foreign-owned acres and 0.03 percent of US farmland. Forty percent of those acres belong to Smithfield Foods, which has been owned by a Chinese company since 2013. Most of the rest are owned by Brazos Highland Properties, Harvest Texas, LLC, and U.S. Agri-Chemicals Corp. None are owned directly by the Chinese government.

It seems that both Trump and his critics are misinformed—China does not own enough American land to make much difference either in land prices or food security. In fact, all foreign countries combined own only 16 percent of the 283 million acres of farmland “owned by non-operator landlords.” It seems to be mainly American investors who are driving the rise in farmland prices. Bill Gates, for example, owns 275,000 acres—slightly more than every Chinese investor combined.

“While Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland remains relatively limited, many farmers are increasingly concerned about farmland being treated as a speculative asset by distant corporate and investment interests—whether foreign or domestic—instead of as a productive resource tied to local communities, food production, and the next generation of farmers,” Farm Action commented.

High land prices are certainly making it difficult for beginning farmers to buy land. It’s a real problem that we need to address. But let’s stop blaming China.