FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Samantha Cave
Communications Coordinator
samantha@nffc.net
603-333-6281
Farmland for Farmers Act Reintroduced to Stop Corporate Farmland Grabs
WASHINGTON, DC, April 28, 2026 – The National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) enthusiastically supports the bicameral Farmland for Farmers Act (S.4391 / H.R.8531), reintroduced yesterday by Senators Cory Booker (NJ) and Bernie Sanders (VT), and Representatives Jill Tokuda (HI-02), Jim McGovern (MA-2), and Shri Thanedar (MI-13). This pivotal legislation would curtail the alarming rising trend of investment firms, pension funds, and other multinational corporations snatching up farmland across the US, often using shady and exploitative practices against food producers and local communities to do so. More than 80 national, state, and local organizations and farmer advocacy groups have endorsed the bill.
“Farmers — especially farmers of color and young and beginning farmers — across the US have seen a crisis involving institutional and corporate buyouts, exacerbating unfair land access and prices,” said Tiffany Bellfield El-Amin, Co-President of NFFC and Executive Director of Kentucky Black Farmers Association. “They prey on struggling farmers and their communities to exploit the land for uses that neither serve nor feed the community, nor employ its residents. Resources are limited and often gatekept due to these corporate buyouts — we must prevent institutional buyers from using resources that farmers rely on for their livelihoods. The Farmland for Farmers Act does more than protect access to farmland; it protects land prices and sustainability which farmers need to continue feeding our families and communities.”
“I am proud that American agriculture remains a family-run enterprise — from small, diversified farms to large, multi-generational operations,” said Cameron Skinner, owner of Living Soil Farm in Big Timber, MT and member of Northern Plains Resource Council and NFFC. “Farms like mine are vital to rural economies, providing local employment and sustaining communities across every region of the country. But family-scale farms are under threat, and 2025 reports suggest a 200% bankruptcy increase in Montana alone. The Farmland for Farmers Act will go a long way to addressing the challenges we face today in agriculture. I ask our Congress members to help keep farmland for farming!”
“This legislation is a critical step toward addressing aggressive corporate investment in Black-owned farmland,” said the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. “For decades, the Federation has witnessed and worked to address barriers to land access and retention that Black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives have long faced, including challenges like heirs’ property and limited access to capital that threaten ownership and infrastructure expansion. The Farmland for Farmers Act will help ensure that our fertile, productive farmland can be protected and passed on to the next generation.”
Farm Journal research shows that a staggering 44 million acres of US cropland could change hands in just the next three years — about 15% — while more than half of US farmers are expected to retire over the next decade. This transition makes it critical that farmland stays in farmer-owned and community-based production.
But farmers, especially those looking to enter the business, face overwhelming challenges. Consistently low prices paid to farmers for their products, coupled with skyrocketing input costs, have forced independent farmers out of business and off their land. With record-high farmland prices, young and beginning farmers name finding affordable farmland as their top challenge. High land prices provide an advantage to wealthy corporate buyers that view farmland as a way to profit off of land rents, frequently at the expense of local farmers and landowners in crisis. As a result, the value of farmland captured by investment firms has more than doubled since 2020, with no sign of slowing down.
The Farmland for Farmers Act stops this trend in its tracks, restricting future farmland ownership and leasing by corporate investors. In particular, the bill prevents corporate actors from accessing USDA and Farm Credit System benefits to finance their investments. The Act also strengthens state-level restrictions on corporate farmland ownership and existing federal policies that track corporate farmland purchases. Important exemptions to protect small farmer cooperatives, heirs’ property owners, and nonprofit or municipal corporations are included.
Farmer-owned agricultural land supports rural communities while also ensuring a stable US food supply and protecting natural resources. Recent backlash to attempted corporate land acquisitions by data centers, as well as increasing concern by Congress over farmland ownership, demonstrates a strong desire by the American people to keep farmland within the hands of family-scale farmers who feed us and their local communities. NFFC stands with them and urges Congress to support the Farmland for Farmers Act.
The full text of the bill is here, and NFFC’s factsheet on the bill is here. Read Senator Booker’s statement here and Representative Tokuda’s statement here.
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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.
Photo credit: Roger Starnes Sr./Unsplash