By Sarah Mock
May 2, 2026
If the past is any indicator, the future of American farmland will contain many surprises.
INTRODUCTION
Sarah Mock: Two years ago now, I started this project with a question, about why some people own so much farmland. Earlier this week, I completed my final interview for this podcast, and it felt like destiny to be coming face-to-face once again with one of the same billionaire farmland owners that motivated that original question–
John Hanson: If you want to get a rise out of rural folks, you could just walk into any coffee shop anywhere and say, what do you think about Bill Gates? We’ve got some huge outside investor owners. If you look at just the community at large and what’s left of it, the hollowing out of America has gone on.
SM: After all the ground we’ve covered here on the podcast, it felt fitting that the story would circle back here, to the beginning.
After all, every topic we’ve covered, from the legal origins of land ownership, to America’s troubled history with land possession and dispossession, to the impacts of politics and policy, technology and war, environmentalism and economics. They’ve each had, at their core, this same question about who owns land and who doesn’t. If this project has taught me anything, it’s that this might well be The Perennial Question of American agriculture, the common thread that connects not just American farmers, but Americans in general.
