How much US land is owned by China?
USDA's latest data shows China owns over 191,000 acres of U.S. lands, but that was before a North Dakota land sale this Spring. A Chinese company, Fufeng Group, recently acquired 300 acres in North Dakota for $2.6 million.
Investors in the six countries with more valuable U.S. land holdings than China hold U.S. land with a combined value of nearly $29.3 billion.
| Total Land Area (million sq. miles) | Cropland * | |
|---|---|---|
| (million acres) | ||
| Canada United States | 3.8 3.6 | 103 448 |
| north america USSR | 7.4 8.6 | 551 566 |
The U.S. Federal Government.
While much of this land was transferred to the new state of Hawaii in 1959, the federal government did keep some.
USDA's latest data shows China owns over 191,000 acres of U.S. lands, but that was before a North Dakota land sale this Spring. A Chinese company, Fufeng Group, recently acquired 300 acres in North Dakota for $2.6 million.
China's American agricultural land holdings have increased over tenfold in the last decade, and at the beginning of 2020, investments from China held $2 billion of American agricultural land.
Food prices have skyrocketed. Farmland owners benefit from this upswing. This makes it a highly effective inflation hedge — even better than most stocks and bonds. So it's not a big surprise why billionaires have invested (heavily) in the space in recent years.
Roman Catholic Church: 70 million hectares
The largest landowner in the world is not a major oil magnate or a real estate investor. No, it's the Roman Catholic Church. According to lovemoney.com, the church owns more than 70 million hectares.
Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany made up 7%, 6% and 5%, respectively. Chinese investors, whose ability to own land is a growing concern for legislators, increased their holdings of U.S. land from around 191,000 acres in 2019 to just over 194,000 acres in 2020.
Foreign-owned land accounts for about 2.7% of all U.S. farmland and forest land, which, according to the Department of Agriculture, is about 897 million acres.
How much US land does Saudi Arabia own?
The Middle Eastern kingdom needs hay for its 170,000 cows. So, it's buying up farmland for the water-chugging crop in the drought-stricken American Southwest. Saudi Arabia has 170,000 dairy cows - similar to these - it needs to feed.
People own most farmland. Some 2.6 million owners are individuals or families, and they own more than two thirds of all farm acreage. Fewer than 32,500 non family held corpor ations own farmland, and they own less than 5 percent of all U.S. farmland. Farmland owners hold an aver age of about 280 acres each.
