Investigations by the Midwest Center reveal: Canadian owners recently own approximately 2.8 million hectares, followed by 2.0 million hectares in the Netherlands, 785,000 hectares in Germany, 688,000 hectares in the United Kingdom, 567,000 hectares in Italy, Portugal. 559,000 hectares and is owned by France. 421,000 hectares.

Canadian investors cultivate most of the country. In Ohio and some other states, however, German investors are among the largest landowners. A manager who worked for German investors told American media that he entered American agriculture in the early 1980s. “They first started buying land in Iowa and Minnesota,” he explains. The focus was then shifted to Ohio.

Most of the foreign-owned land is not arable land, but forest: that is, 54.9 percent, about 23.6 percent of pasture land and “only” 21.5 percent is arable land. However, agricultural associations fear that data on foreign ownership of agricultural land may not be reported correctly. Data evaluations were often several years ago. But there is a lot of evidence that foreign land ownership will continue to grow.