First, consider the maxim, “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore,” indicating scarcity and barriers to entry, the kind of buzz words and phrases investors find especially appealing. Then consider the human family can survive without office buildings and data centers and any number of assets and asset classes, albeit not as prosperously as it would like, but it cannot survive without fertile land that produces food. Add to that the forecast that farmers need to increase food production about 50 percent by 2050 to sate a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by that date, and one would think farmland would be a sure bet for a gainful position in the investment portfolio.

Billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates have taken that bait and gone big on farmland, aggregating 420,000 acres and 269,000 acres of farmland, respectively. China, perhaps the hungriest country on the planet, had locked up 384,000 acres of U.S. farmland as of 2021. What’s more, 31