Who Owns the Most U.S. Farmland and Other Takeaways From the Land Investment Expo
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From billionaire landowners to shifting demographics and steady land values, speakers at the Land Investment Expo shared insights shaping the future of U.S. farmland.
By Lisa Foust Prater | Published on January 14, 2026
The 19th annual Land Investment Expo, hosted by Peoples Co., was held Tuesday, Jan. 13, at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Here are a few highlights from the conference.
Who Owns the Most American Farmland?
Eric O'Keefe, editor of The Land Report, emceed the program. He shared results of the Land Report 100, a list of the largest private landowners in the U.S. The top four for 2026 are:
Stan Kroenke, owner of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, NBA's Denver Nuggets, NHL's Colorado Avalanche, MLS's Colorado Rapids, and English Premier League's Arsenal FC, among other sports franchises, made the largest land purchase in the U.S. in more than a decade when he purchased a 937,000-acre New Mexico ranch. He now owns an estimated 2.7 million acres nationwide. Kroenke is the son-in-law of Bud Walton, who co-founded Walmart with his brother, Sam.
Timber magnate Red Emmerson and family own 2.44 million acres in California, Oregon, and Washington.
John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, owns 2.2 million acres.
CNN founder Ted Turner owns 2 million acres across the Southeast, Great Plains, and West.
250 Years of American Ag
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig welcomed the crowd, beginning with a nod to 2026 as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. "Through history, farmers have endured things like wars and pandemics and depressions and recessions and weather extremes and pests and disease, policy shifts, global uncertainty — and that's just since last Wednesday," he joked.
Naig discussed Iowa's role in American agriculture, goals for a five-year farm bill, trade agreements that address tariff and non-tariff barriers, and year-round nationwide access to E-15.
The End of Globalization
Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan discussed the impact lower birth rates and an aging population have on the world economics.
Based on demographic trends in China, he predicted, "In less than 10 years, the Chinese will not have enough people of working age to sustain any economic structure that we are currently familiar with.... The question is whether we can build out our industrial plants fast enough that we can function in the way we're comfortable with before the Chinese vanish, and we are running out of time."
Zeihan said the U.S. may have trouble filling the manufacturing gap because of our own population shift. "The Zoomers [Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012] are the smallest generation we've ever had. Between the exiting Boomers and the entering Zoomers, last calendar year, that shrunk the labor force by three-quarters of a million people, and that number will replicate or increase every year for the next 10 years," he said. "We're looking at a very different labor environment at a time when globalization is ending and we need to reindustrialize. This is the single biggest pressure most American investors are going to face over the next 25 years."
USDA Update
Deputy USDA Secretary Stephen Vaden, a lawyer and former judge who owns farms in Kentucky and Tennessee, discussed a shrinking footprint at USDA, including eliminating under-utilized buildings and moving employees out of Washington, D.C., to be closer to farmers.
Vaden touted the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, namely making a $15 million-per-person or $30-million-per-couple estate tax exemption permanent. "I take this very personally. I think of it as something like a moral issue. I don't think the IRS should be an uninvited guest at your relative's funeral," he said. "What people work for their entire lives to build should not be spent in six seconds by the federal government."
He also assured the crowd that starting next month, farmers who qualify for bridge assistance payments will receive a direct deposit within three days of visiting their county USDA office and signing the pre-filled form.
Lending and Land Values
Jim Knuth, senior vice president of lending in Iowa for Farm Credit Services of America, said farmers continue to be the largest buyer of Iowa farm ground, and values are stable — down less than 2% in 2025.
Knuth said his advice to producers is to have working capital of at least 20% of the value of the farm's production. "It is really hard to run your business without working capital," he said. "Think of it as a farm savings account that I can draw on if I need to. When times are tough and tight, it's your short term risk variability."
Next-Gen Ag
Like Zeihan, well-known regenerative farmer and author Joel Salatin discussed demographic trends. "The elephant in the room in agriculture, I think, is the fact that the average age of America's farmer is 60 years old. We have three times as many farmers over 65 as under 35," he said. "According to business economists, any sector of the economy in which half of its the median age of its practitioners is over 35 is an economic sector in decline. We are 25 years over that sector."
Salatin said the industry needs to make agriculture attractive to the next generation. "We promote a white collar salary," he said. "There's no reason why farm income should not compete with the city income, but you're not going to do it being dependent on USDA bailouts, Vladimir Putin's fertilizer and, those kinds of things."
He hires 11 summer stewards each year, and said last year 135 students applied. As he approaches 70, Salatin said, "It's so gratifying and exciting to have that kind of youthful enthusiasm around you as you age, because it helps to keep you young and enthusiastic."
Not That Office
Ron Diamond explained that a family office is not the room where you sit at a desk and pay bills; these private companies manage wealth management and investment services to very wealthy families. His company, Diamond Wealth, is a syndicate of 100 family offices ranging in size from $250 million to more than $30 billion.
Diamond said family offices control an estimated $10 trillion, exceeding the hedge fund universe. Because they seek patient, non-correlated, tax-efficient assets, farmland may be a good fit for them. "They're great partners because they're not looking to flip [an investment] in five years," he said. "They don't need the income. They don't want to pay taxes on anything. They just want to appreciate."
Roaring 2020s
Ed Yardeni is the president of Yardeni Research, Inc., a global investment strategy provider. "It's been an interesting decade so far. We're six years into what I call the roaring 2020s," he said. "We have four years to go and I think the economy's going to continue to grow. I don't think we're going to have a recession."
Yardeni discussed how politics affect the economy, but said when it comes to the financial markets, "I find that a lot of people let their politics get in the way of investing, which is a really bad idea. You can make money no matter who's in the White House. In the stock market, you lose or you have a buying opportunity."
Keeping It Real
Geopolitical expert Marko Papic closed the expo with market predictions. "In my view, 2026 is not going to be about Greenland. It's not going to be about Venezuela or Iran. It's going to be about using the wealth stored in people's homes to extend this economic cycle," he said.
Papic said there's an interest in investing in physical things like land and minerals, and that will help values hold steady. "I don't think that there's going to be any change in the trajectory of land values, commercial, real estate, whatever, over the next 10 years," he said. "In fact, it's going to catch up to gold would be my conclusion."
ARTICLE: SUCCESSFUL FARMING, JANUARY 14, 2026
