How many acres of U.S. farmland are rented to ag producers for growing crops? It’s one of several questions answered by participating landowners in USDA’s latest Tenure, Ownership and Transition of Agricultural Land survey.
“The total survey provides comprehensive data on the financial and demographic aspects of agricultural land ownership. We last conducted this survey in 2014, and it’s basically gathering information on both operating landlords and non-operating landlords.”
Brian Combs of the National Agricultural Statistics Service says the rented farmland total for 2024 applies to landowners who are both operating farmers and non-operating landlords.
“Those landlords collectively rented out 350 million acres of farmland. There were more than 2 million landlords who leased agricultural land to farmers. This is a slight increase from 2014.”
Additional findings from the survey include:
“Of the 348 million acres of land rented, more than 85% is concentrated in the Plains, the West and the Midwest regions. And roughly 60% of the land rented out is cropland. If we look at who is renting out that land, there are more than 1.1 million non-operating landlords, and we compare that to 260,000 operating landlords. Those non-operating landlords have asset values that total $1.7 trillion, which is a 47% increase from 2014.”
Combs adds that while debt rose over the past decade for landowners participating in the survey,
“it still remained relatively low at about 3% of the land debt-to-value. And most landlords own their land debt-free and don’t have any recent capital expenditures.”
Across all regions, less than 7% of all farmland is expected to be gifted within the next five years.
“The average age of principal operators did increase to 69.2 years old. That was up from 66.5 years in 2014. So, the same thing we see in the Census of Agriculture with that average age ticking up over survey cycles.”