Bruce Wittenberg gazed at the scenic country landscape surrounding him in frustration. All this lovely land, and none of it for sale! He’d come to McMinnville, Tennessee because he’d heard on X that there were some choice acres available, but some other crypto millionaire had beaten him to it. Just his rotten luck.

Bill Gates made the headlines when he started buying up farmland decades ago, but he wasn’t even the biggest billionaire landowner. Jeff Bezos owned half a million acres in Texas, and there were a couple of dudes who owned more than 2 million acres each. Privately. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Over 70% of US farmland is now owned by investors, not farmers, and foreign ownership of American soil has tripled in the last decade. They’re mostly ‘non-operator’ landlords, either holding the asset purely as a hedge, or renting it out to agricultural conglomerates. The idea of a farming family growing crops or ranching cattle on their own land is ancient history.

It’s not like there’s any threat to food security. Better agritech has raised yields and indoor farming has changed supply chains, improving quality, freshness, and availability. Food is plentiful, and cheaper than ever.

It’s a similar picture in Europe. Rural areas in France, Germany, and Spain are either protected areas, state forests, or already in private hands. And not for sale. The appeal of moving to a smallholding in Tuscany is so last decade. There’s nothing available at any price.

Of course, there’s plenty of land in Saskatchewan. Or Siberia. Or the Sahara. But who wants to live there?

Bruce sighed. He’d made his money in the tech sector, and was ready to move out of the city and enjoy the country life, on a nice little ranch of his own. But where has all the farmland gone?