FSA Releases Report on Foreign Holdings of U.S. Land

Farm Service Agency (FSA) has released the latest annual report of foreign holdings of US agricultural land, according to the USDA press release. The report includes statistics through February 28, 2009 and is available here.

Foreign persons hold an interest in a total of 22.2 million acres of US agricultural land, which is 1.7 percent of all privately held US agricultural land and 0.98 percent of land in the US.  According to the report, the statistics represent a 1.3 million acre increase from 2008.

Canadians hold over 7.7 million acres or 34 percent of foreign land holdings, the largest amount.  The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Germany follow Canada in the largest amounts of foreign held land.  The "states with the highest proportions of foreign owned agricultural land to all privately owned agricultural land" are: Maine at 15.7 percent, Hawaii at 8.8 percent, Washington at 7.6 percent, Nevada at 5.2 percent and Alabama at 5.1 percent.

To read the USDA press release, click here.

Posted: 07/22/2010