Foreign investment in U.S. cropland has mearly tripled in the past decade, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. The total cropland controlled by foreign interests in 2020 was 10.9 million acres, up from r.1 million acres in 2010...Foreign investors own more than just cropland. Overall, they own or lease nearly 37.6 million acres of agricultural land, including forests and pastures. That is an area slightly larger than the state of Illinois and makes up 2.9 percent of all privately held agricultural land. In the U.S. This is up from a total of 24.2 million acres in 2010, according to the USDA.