100+ Food and Farm Groups Urge Congress to Protect Farmland for Farmers

StaffPress Room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Contacts:
Samantha Cave
Communications Coordinator, NFFC
samantha@nffc.net
603-333-6281

100+ Food and Farm Groups Urge Congress to Protect Farmland for Farmers

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 16, 2026) — In advance of the Senate’s Farm Bill deliberations, more than 100 organizations joined the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) in a letter sent to Congress urging for swift passage of the Farmland for Farmers Act. The legislation would address the rapidly intensifying corporate concentration of farmland. 

The Farmland for Farmers Act (S.4391/H.R. 8531), introduced earlier this year by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Jill Tokuda (D-HI), offers Congress a path forward to address the harmful consequences of speculative farmland investment being done by financial corporations. The impacts to farmland accessibility, affordability, and succession are especially alarming in light of the steep barriers already faced by the next generation of farmers.

“Over the past two decades, farmland consolidation has been increasingly driven by U.S.-based multinational corporations, private equity firms, and pension funds,” the letter says. “The number of institutionally owned properties more than tripled from 2005 to 2025, and the market value of that property increased from less than $2 billion to over $16 billion in the same time period.”

“As farmland has increasingly been consolidated under corporate ownership, evidence shows that the result in rural communities is depopulation, the loss of critical institutions such as banks and hospitals, and fewer jobs,” the letter continues. “The trend of corporate ownership has also contributed to agricultural land prices reaching historically high levels in 2025, with farmland prices nearly tripling since 2005.”

The letter outlines the measures that the Farmland for Farmers Act would take, such as:

  • Preventing corporate ownership of farmland that is kept in agricultural production;
  • Demanding transparency from domestic and foreign corporations that own farmland;
  • Protecting family farmers who own farmland and forbidding corporations from utilizing federal agricultural programs; and
  • Increasing enforcement of farmland oversight laws by empowering state governments and strengthening penalties for noncompliance.

“Now is the time to address this trend and put farmer livelihoods over corporate profits. We call on Congressional leaders to work collaboratively to strengthen U.S. farmland laws by including the Farmland for Farmers Act in the Farm Bill,” the letter concludes.

Read the letter and review its signatories here. 

The Farmland for Farmers Act is cosponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Representative Shri Thanedar (D-MI), and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

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Since 1986, National Family Farm Coalition has been mobilizing family farmers and ranchers to achieve fair prices, vibrant communities, and healthy foods free of corporate domination. Today, NFFC includes 30 member groups representing family farmers, ranchers, fisherfolk, and rural advocates across the United States.