USDA's Farm Service Agency has released its annual publication regarding foreign investors' holdings of United States agricultural land. The publication contains statistics that are current through Dec. 31, 2011.
The report, titled "Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land Through December 31, 2011," is now available on the FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov/.
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 annual publication includes a wide variety of both annual and cumulative activity reports.
Annual Activity Reports include the following: U.S. Agricultural and Nonagricultural Landholdings, Annual Activity of Foreign Investors by State, U.S. Agricultural and Nonagricultural Land Acquisitions by Country of Foreign Investor, and U.S. Agricultural and Nonagricultural Land Dispositions by Country of Foreign Investor.
Just a few of the Cumulative Activity Reports within the publication are U.S. Agricultural Landholdings of Foreign Investors by State, U.S. Landholdings of Foreign Investors by Type of Land Use and by State, U.S. Agricultural and Nonagricultural Investors, Parcels, Acres and Value by Country of Foreign Investor.
The publication's findings are based on reports submitted to FSA in compliance with the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA). The law was created to establish a nationwide system for collecting information pertaining to foreign ownership in U.S. agricultural land. Foreign investors who buy, sell or hold an interest (other than a security interest) in U.S. agricultural land are required to report such holdings and transactions to the Secretary of Agriculture on AFIDA Report Form FSA-153.
Source: USAgnet