By Guy Page

A report released Thursday, July 10 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that 84,924 acres of Vermont farmland belonged to foreign owners as of December 31, 2023.

The Foreign Farm Land Purchases map shows 568 foreign-owned agricultural parcels worth $34,258,185 located on 84,923.9 acres, or 132.69 square miles. Foreign ownership accounts for 1.38% of all ag land ownership, a moderately low percentage compared to other U.S. states. 

The report does not cite the owners, nationalities, or specific locations of the foreign-owned parcels.

However, the map does show foreign-owned ag land by county. Not surprisingly, concentration of foreign ownership is highest in Vermont’s three largest agriculture producers, Franklin, Orleans, and Addison counties.

The map also has a ‘non-agricultural’ category reporting about 4,000 acres statewide. 

Disclosure of foreign ownership of agricultural land is required by the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978.

The Center Square reports that as of December 31, 2023, foreign entities owned roughly 45.8 million acres of U.S. land—an area equal in size to the entire state of Washington.

More than 60% of that U.S. land is held by investors from Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, and the United Kingdom. But ownership also extends to entities tied to nations considered adversaries of the United States.

Chinese companies and investors—some with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party—own more than 277,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land in 30 states. Texas leads by a wide margin, with over 123,000 acres under Chinese ownership. North Carolina and Missouri each account for more than 42,000 acres, and Utah has more than 33,000 acres.

Other nations the U.S. regards as hostile have also acquired American land. Venezuelan entities hold more than 90,000 acres across 17 states. Iranian interests own over 3,000 acres in 10 states, while Pakistani entities own approximately 2,100 acres in three states.