ActionAid’s new research finds that financial companies are spending billions to buy up millions of acres of farmland in the United States and around the world in order to speculate with the price of farmland. These largely unregulated and unaccountable speculative business deals are marginalizing the family farming sector, hollowing out rural communities, and undermining real investments in ecological food and agriculture.
In the United States, family farmers and farmers of color cannot compete with the vast financial resources of large, institutional investors for farmland access, and rural communities stand to lose good jobs and livelihoods from small businesses as corporate absentee landlords acquire local farmland. In other countries, financial companies are buying land from notorious “land grabbers,” leading to repeated and well-documented acts of violence and intimidation, human rights violations, and systemic deforestation in critical ecosystems. Financial companies that treat farmland as a speculative asset also promote a chemical-based model of agriculture that is a major cause of climate change.
In the next 10-15 years, half of all U.S. farmland – around 400 million acres – is expected to change hands as the aging population of farmers retires.1 It is critical that we protect and support family farms now to ensure vibrant rural communities, diverse rural economies, and ecological and sustainable agriculture.
Without intervention, this process of financializing farmland could lock out the next generation of family farmers and further deepen inequality in agriculture in the U.S., exacerbate climate change globally, and endanger the stability and security of local, national, and global food systems.
Author: Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau
Editors and contributors: Doug Hertzler, Maria Luisa Mendonça, Andrew Kang Bartlett, and Jordan Treakle
Design and layout: Jenna Farineau
Cover photo: Lance Cheung
Date published: May 2023