The Chronicles Of Grant County
Foreign Ownership Of Agricultural Land In Southwest New Mexico
This map shows the amounts of acreage owned by foreign entities and individuals in Southwest New Mexico and surrounding areas. Grant County is highlighted in a darker shade of orange on this map. (The map was provided courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture, December 31, 2023.).
More than 161,000 acres in Southwest New Mexico are owned by individuals and entities from 9 other nations.
These statistics are from a report issued by the Farm Service Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “Foreign Holdings of United States Agricultural Land Through December 31, 2023”, as well as the detailed data underlying the annual reports of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA). This report and its detailed data include the most recent information on this subject from the USDA.
As noted in The Chronicles Of Grant County in 2024, the data utilized by the USDA as of December 31, 2021, included information that may not be correct.
The USDA included that same information in the updated data as of December 31, 2023.
Chino Mines Co. owned 90,953 acres in Grant County and 16,335 acres in Luna County, according to the USDA; the Federal agency indicated that this acreage was owned by an entity from Japan.
In 2024, Freeport-McMoRan Inc., an American business with its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, confirmed that “Chino Mines is 100% owned by Freeport-McMoRan. It was part of the 2007 Freeport-McMoRan acquisition of Phelps Dodge Corporation. It appears that the USDA information does not accurately reflect current ownership of the mine.”
With this caveat – a very large caveat – the statistics listed in this news column reflect the stats issued by the USDA as of December 31, 2023.
In Southwest New Mexico, according to the USDA, ag land is owned by individuals and entities from Canada, France, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Two of the properties in the region listed in the USDA database are identified as having “no foreign investor listed.”
These individuals and entities own a total of 161,796.94 acres in Catron, Grant, Hidalgo, and Luna Counties as of December 31, 2023, according to the USDA. This total includes 14,681.8 acres of crop land, 140,171 acres of pasture land, and 5,697 acres of other agricultural land; non-agricultural acreage owned by these same individuals and entities includes 1,247.14 acres.
According to the USDA, individuals and entities from other nations own 29,868 acres in Catron County. All of this acreage is listed as being pasture land. Nations represented by these owners are Liberia, Mexico, and the Netherlands.
In Grant County, the USDA reported individuals and entities from other countries own 93,262 acres. This includes 120 acres of crop land, 91,033 acres of pasture land, and 2,029 acres used for other ag purposes; these same individuals and entities own 80 acres used for non-ag purposes. Nationals and entities from France, Japan, Panama, and Switzerland, according to the USDA, own land in Grant County; the two properties identified as having “no foreign investor listed” are also in this county.
Acreage in the amount of 6,319 acres in Hidalgo County is owned by individuals and entities from other countries. This includes 5,660 acres of crop land and 596 acres used for other ag purposes; non-agricultural acreage includes 63 acres owned by these same individuals and entities. Owners of land in this county hail from Mexico and the United Kingdom.
The USDA report indicated that 32,347.94 acres in Luna County are owned by individuals and entities from other nations. This total includes 8,901.8 acres of crop land, 19,270 acres of pasture land, and 3,072 acres of ground used for other agricultural purposes; 1,104.14 acres used for non-agricultural purposes are also owned by these same individuals and entities. According to the USDA, nationals and entities from Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Panama, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom own land in Luna County.
On a national level, the USDA reported “Foreign investors held an interest in nearly 45 million acres of United States agricultural land (forest land and farmland) as of December 31, 2023. This is an increase of over 1.5 million acres from the December 31, 2022 report and represents 3.5 percent of all privately held agricultural land in the United States.”
Please note that when reviewing the actual data from the USDA, the amount of acreage reported is actually more than 45 million acres: 45,850,252.058 acres.
“These and other findings are based on information submitted to the USDA in compliance with the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978,” the USDA statement continued. “Forest land accounted for 48 percent of all reported foreign-held acreage, cropland for 29 percent, pasture and other agricultural land for 21 percent, and non-agricultural land for 2 percent.”
“Foreign holdings of U S agricultural land increased modestly from 2012 through 2017, increasing an average of 0.6 million acres per year,” the statement from the USDA added. “Since 2017, foreign holdings have increased an average of nearly 2.6 million acres annually, ranging from 1.5 million acres to over 3.4 million acres per year.”
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