Owning America

Do you own land? America is slowly being purchased by foreign countries according to a new study released by USDA's Farm Service Agency. The annual publication "Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land Through December 31, 2011" is an interesting read. The data gathered through Dec. 31, 2011, indicate that foreign investors hold an interest in 25,715,588 acres of U.S. agricultural land, which is approximately 2 percent of all privately held U.S. agricultural land, and 1 percent of all land in the U.S. The total foreign-held U.S. agricultural acres as of the last report, dated Dec. 31, 2010, were 24,224,807, resulting in an increase of 1,490,781 acres. The state of Texas has the largest amount of foreign held U.S. agricultural land with 2,894,563 acres, representing 1.9% of privately-held agricultural land in Texas. Maine has the second largest amount of foreign held agricultural acres with 2,877,965. The majority of these acres consist of forest or timber land, totaling 2,830,467 acres. Washington has the third largest amount of foreign held agricultural land with 1,671,102 acres, which is 7.6% of its privately held agricultural land. Canadians hold the most foreign-owned U.S. land, with people from the Netherlands second and Germany third. The United Kingdom and Portugal round out the top five.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.