A fresh ranking of who bought American farmland in July, August and September 2026 would make a striking headline. It would also outrun the public record. The USDA Farm Service Agency’s AFIDA annual-report page and underlying-data page currently list data only through December 31, 2024. Neither page publishes a Q3 2026 transaction table. So here is what the latest primary-source data actually say.
46.3 million acres is an interest, not a crop-field count
USDA’s 2024 AFIDA report says foreign persons reported an interest in 46.3 million acres of US agricultural land at year-end 2024, up 1.3 million acres from 2023. That was 3.6% of privately held agricultural land. The report counts forest land as agricultural land. Across all reported land-use categories, 47% of acres were forest, 29% cropland, 22% pasture or other agricultural land, and 2% nonagricultural land. Calling all 46.3 million acres “farms bought” would misstate the source.
The same report’s state and country tables put Texas first by reported acreage, at nearly 5.9 million acres; Maine follows at just over 3.5 million, then Colorado at 2.4 million. USDA says most of the Texas and Maine acreage is forest, while cropland matters more in Colorado. Canadian investors account for 34% of reported foreign-held agricultural and nonagricultural acres in the report’s country table; Chinese investors held nearly 248,000 acres, less than 1% of that country-table total. Those are year-end holdings, not the nationalities of Q3 2026 buyers.
Why the timing matters
Under AFIDA’s reporting rules, as summarized by USDA, foreign persons generally report an acquisition or transfer within 90 days. That deadline does not mean the public receives a quarterly dataset. USDA uses disclosures to prepare an annual report, and its detailed spreadsheet page warns of possible errors from manually entered paper filings. USDA’s 2024 report also says some changes reflect late filings or reconciliation of older transactions.
The distinction matters for anyone watching a local sale. AFIDA measures reported interests, which can include long-term leases, across land used for farming, ranching and forestry. It does not by itself tell a county whether a specific 2026 parcel was sold, who controls a company behind a transaction, or whether a farmer lost a lease. County property records and the actual filing would be needed to investigate that parcel. Until USDA releases newer data, a Q3 leaderboard by country or state is a claim without a public AFIDA source.
Related: How farmland funds and REITs work and who owns land while farmers rent it.
