Farmland Investing in 2026: REITs vs Platforms, From the Filings

Eight ways in, side by side

Most farmland pages explain why to own farmland and then list products. The filings let us do the opposite: put every way in on one grid and read the terms each issuer itself wrote. Prices are the October 9, 2026 close; platform terms are the companies’ own website claims, read October 11, 2026.

Two other doors exist that we did not table: registered interval funds that hold some farmland (our review of the Harrison Street Real Assets Fund, ticker VCRRX, reads one) and direct purchase of land. The first mixes farmland with infrastructure and timber; the second is a different decision from the ones above.

Farmland Partners: sold 116 farms, gains over book, debt up

Farmland Partners reports that it is “an internally managed real estate company that owns and seeks to acquire high-quality farmland.” At June 30, 2026 it owned about 70,100 acres, down from about 71,600 at December 31, 2025, with 36,297 of the 70,080 acres in its regional table in the Corn Belt. Rental income was $35,929,000 in 2025, down 23.7% from $47,119,000, which the 10-K attributes primarily to dispositions in 2024 and 2025. Rental income in the first half of 2026 was $12,002,000 against $12,994,000 a year earlier.

The sales are the story. The table sets each period’s consideration against the gain the company booked; “implied book” is consideration minus gain (our arithmetic), before selling costs and not the balance-sheet carrying value.

Read the 2025 line with care. Twenty-three of the 60 properties were not sold for cash: the company “exchanged 23 properties for the redemption and cancellation of 31,000 Series A preferred units.” The 63.1% therefore mixes a cash price with a swap value. What the gains cannot show is a repeatable income stream: they are one-time profits from shrinking the portfolio. The company also repurchased 3,411,581 shares in 2025 at a weighted average $11.07, and declared a one-time special dividend of $0.20 a share in December 2025.

On February 6, 2026 it redeemed all 68,000 remaining Series A preferred units for $68.0 million plus accrued distributions ($68.2 million in cash). The 10-Q shows the other side of that: borrowings from mortgage notes of $80,200,000 in the six months, and mortgage notes and bonds payable of $223,885,000 at June 30, 2026 against $160,842,000 at December 31, 2025. Dividends declared per common share, regular and special, were $0.18 in the first half of 2026 against $0.12 a year earlier.

Book value: common stock $436,000, additional paid-in capital $526,217,000, retained earnings $120,860,000 and cumulative dividends of $187,509,000 give $460,004,000 of stockholders’ equity before non-controlling interests, or $10.54 on 43,628,639 shares (our arithmetic). At $10.47 the shares trade at 0.99 times that figure. Farmland sits on the balance sheet at cost less depreciation, so book is an accounting number, not an appraisal.

Gladstone Land: rents reset lower, shares issued, trading above book

Gladstone Land is externally managed and says it owned 144 farms totaling 98,688 acres across 14 states and 55,649 acre-feet of water assets at June 30, 2026, with 142 farms leased to 79 tenants and two properties (four farms) farmed directly. Eighty-one farms are pure triple-net leases, 44 are partial-net and three are single-net.

The 2025 10-K breaks lease revenue into its parts, and this is the number we have not seen on a farmland-investing page:

Fixed rent is what a landlord can count on; participation rent depends on the tenant’s crop revenue. The 10-K also says the 2025 total includes about $7.2 million (about $4.4 million of it lease termination fees) from 15 farms whose leases had expired. On leasing activity since January 1, 2025, 14 leases covering 16,157 acres in California, Colorado and Oregon moved from $6,899,000 of annualized straight-line rent to $6,388,000 on new terms averaging 5.0 years. That is $427 to $395 an acre, down 7.4% (our arithmetic), based on minimum guaranteed rent.

Sales were smaller and less profitable than FPI’s: five Florida farms (5,630 acres) for $52.5 million with a net gain of about $14.1 million after closing costs in January 2025, two Nebraska farms for $12.0 million, two Florida farms for $21.5 million, and in December 2025 two North Carolina farms for about $1.0 million at a net loss of about $1.2 million. Net gain on dispositions was $13,882,000 in 2025 against $5,886,000 in 2024. In July 2026 it sold two more Florida farms (617 acres) for about $3.2 million.

Capital: common shares outstanding went from 38,014,918 at December 31, 2025 to 43,136,573 at June 30, 2026 (up 13.5%, our arithmetic), and on April 24, 2026 it signed new at-the-market agreements for up to $500.0 million of common stock. It reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $23,507,000 for the six months. Common distributions declared on July 14, 2026 are $0.0467 a share a month, about 5.9% a year at $9.48 if unchanged (our arithmetic, not a forecast). The company also authorized, on July 15, 2026, repurchases of up to $20,000,000 of Series B and $35,000,000 of Series C preferred through July 14, 2027.

Book value: total equity of $673,111,000 includes 15,463,268 preferred shares (Series B 5,658,577, Series C 9,593,965, Series E 210,726; our sum) with a $25.00 liquidation preference. Treating them at $25 leaves about $286.5 million for 43,136,573 common shares, or $6.64 (our arithmetic). At $9.48 the shares trade at 1.43 times that.

FPI and LAND on one grid

The rent proxies are not lease rates: they divide a year of revenue (including variable rent, reimbursements and, for LAND, termination fees) by year-end acres, so they overstate a portfolio that was shrinking during the year. Compare them with the $161 national cropland rent below only as a reminder of how different these portfolios are from an average Iowa cornfield. Prices come from Yahoo Finance daily closes saved October 11, 2026, last trading day October 9; they are market data, not an SEC filing.

What USDA says the land is worth, and what it rents for

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service publishes the benchmark every platform quotes. The July 2026 summary says US farm real estate, “a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms,” averaged $4,500 an acre for 2026, up $150 or 3.4%.

From 2022 to 2026 the national figure rose 21.0% (our arithmetic). Year by year: 6.7% in 2023, 5.0% in 2024, 4.3% in 2025, 3.4% in 2026 (our arithmetic from the table in the Summary). Cash rents come from a separate survey: in 2025 the average rate to rent US cropland was $161 an acre, $1 above 2024, with irrigated cropland at $244, non-irrigated at $147 and pasture at $15.50. Rent over cropland value was 2.8% in 2025 (our arithmetic, $161 over $5,830). We did not find a 2026 national cash rent in the Summary we saved, so the rent figures here are 2025. Two corrections to what circulates: the report is dated July 2026, and the 3.4% is the national farm real estate figure, not the cropland one.

AcreTrader and FarmTogether: what the Form D record adds up to

Each farm on these platforms is sold by its own company, and each company files a Form D with the SEC within 15 days of its first sale. We read the latest Form D of every AcreTrader and FarmTogether entity on EDGAR on October 11, 2026, with the script saved on this page’s source list. The totals match our two platform reviews, AcreTrader and FarmTogether, which carry the farm-by-farm detail.

Three findings are new to this page. First, AcreTrader now has a pooled fund: its website lists the Proterra AcreTrader Farmland Fund LP with a $150,000 Class A minimum, a $1,000,000 Institutional minimum, an evergreen structure, a 24-month lock-up and a single K-1, and the fund’s Form D (Pooled Investment Fund, Rule 506(c), filed February 19, 2026) reported $0 sold and no first sale yet. Our FarmTogether review lists “None found” for an AcreTrader pooled fund; that is now out of date. Second, the Form D does not carry the fee terms. The fund’s only statement on fees is “Issuer’s confidential offering materials fully discuss all fees.” Third, platform volume is not rising everywhere: AcreTrader’s 2024 farm money was 78.4% below 2022 (our arithmetic), and has since recovered to $44.3 million in 2026 with fewer buyers per farm, while FarmTogether’s last farm Form D was filed on October 30, 2025 and its fund and its own company reported raises in 2026 (the filings do not say why).

Fees, from the companies. AcreTrader’s saved pages carry no fee figure for single-farm deals. FarmTogether’s FAQ says for crowdfunded deals that fees “vary for every deal and are listed on each investment opportunity’s page,” gives the fund’s Class A as 1.25% management, 2% acquisition and a 15% incentive fee over a 6% cumulative hurdle (10% for Class I, $5,000,000 minimum), and says a bespoke farm carries a 2% one-time administrative fee. These are website claims dated October 11, 2026. The FarmTogether FAQ gives the fund minimum as $100,000 in one answer and $50,000 in another; the Form D says $100,000.

Liquidity, from the companies. FarmTogether: there is no secondary market for single-farm deals and “it is unlikely that a secondary resale market will develop.” The fund allows redemptions after two years, up to 2.5% of NAV a quarter and 10% a year, subject to available cash. If you are weighing platforms against each other on this grid, our guides to accredited-only platforms and to how crowdfunded real estate actually exits set out the same questions for the rest of the market.

Amber Farmland Investments: the $10,000 door

Until September 2, 2026 it was Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, PBC; a supplement to its offering circular says its legal name changed to Amber Farmland Investments PBC on that date with its structure unchanged. It sells under Regulation A, so it files an offering circular, annual reports on Form 1-K and semiannual reports on Form 1-SA, and it can sell to people who are not accredited, within a cap: “no sale may be made to you in this Offering if the aggregate purchase price you pay is more than 10% of the greater of your annual income or net worth” for non-accredited buyers.

The offering circular dated May 12, 2026 offers up to $65,000,000 of common shares at $108.06 a share, set by the board from net asset value, with a $10,000 initial minimum and no underwriting fees. Since May 3, 2019 it has raised nearly $67,219,367. Liquidity is the catch, in its own words: a redemption program “designed to provide our stockholders with limited liquidity approximately four times a year, but eligibility for this program is subject to a 5-year holding period, with caps on the number of shares that can be redeemed each period.”

The June 30, 2026 Form 1-SA shows total assets of $117,209,068, 75 farms under lease (78 a year earlier), six-month net income of $312,893 against $1,091,607 (including a $552,341 gain on sales), and funds from operations, which strip out such gains, of negative $133,823. Redemptions paid were $3,765,257 against $5,809,799 of new contributions. Our Regulation A real estate offerings page lists the earlier offering under the old name and a $75,000,000 size; the current circular is for $65,000,000.

Is farmland a good investment? Is now a good time?

The filings answer part of it. They show a land price series that has risen every year from 2022 to 2026 at a slowing pace, and a cash rent that is about 2.8% of cropland value. They show the listed vehicles diverging: FPI flat over a year and two, LAND up 3.9% over a year and down 29.6% over two, with FPI booking $92.3 million of gains from selling farms (our sum) and LAND’s share count up 13.5% in six months (our arithmetic). They show platforms that publish what they sold but not what investors earned: neither Form D nor the website pages we saved carry a distribution or exit history.

“Is now a good time” has no answer in any of these documents, and anyone who gives you one from a platform’s marketing page is selling something. What the numbers do support is narrower: USDA’s series says the average value per acre is 21.0% above 2022 (our arithmetic); the REIT filings say that part of the reported gains in listed farmland came from selling farms; and the platform filings say that AcreTrader’s 2026 farms have raised $44,275,000 from 938 investor positions, about $47,201 each (our arithmetic), from accredited investors who have no resale market described.

Does JD Vance own stock in AcreTrader?

We could not verify it from an official source. The one primary document we read is the Vice President’s annual OGE Form 278e public financial disclosure report for calendar year 2024 (the file is titled “2025 Annual 278”, date of appointment 01/20/2025). The text we extracted from it does not contain the word AcreTrader or the word farmland. It lists, among other items, an interest in Narya Capital Fund I, LP valued at $500,001 - $1,000,000 and in Narya Capital Fund II, LP at $1,001 - $15,000. A fund interest does not tell a reader which companies the fund holds, and we did not locate a later annual report. Until a primary document names it, the answer is: not shown in the filing we read.

What a farmland investor can do with this

• Pick the group before the product. If you are not accredited, the grid leaves two doors: shares of FPI or LAND on an exchange, or Amber under Regulation A with its 10% cap and five-year wait. Platform deals and funds are sold to accredited investors. Our guide for accredited investors and for non-accredited investors cover the rest of the market.
• For the REITs, read the sale and share-count lines. Compare gains on sale with rent, and check whether the share count and debt rose in the same period, as they did for LAND’s shares and FPI’s mortgages.
• For platforms, check the Form D against what you are shown. Search the farm company’s name on EDGAR and compare amount sold, investors, minimum and date of first sale. Ask in writing for the fee schedule of that specific deal, since the Form D has no fee box for annual or acquisition charges. Our red-flag checklist for platform filings lists the other questions.
• Size the exit. Platform deals target 5 to 10 years, the fund a 24-month lock-up, Amber a five-year wait. Only the listed REITs can be sold the same day, at the market’s price.
• Know how it is taxed. Single-farm deals and funds issue K-1s (AcreTrader’s website says so); our guide to K-1 and 1099-DIV investments covers what that changes. Both platforms’ whole-farm accounts call themselves 1031-compatible; our 1031 exchange rules guide explains what that requires.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 11, 2026: USDA NASS, Land Values 2026 Summary (July 2026, esmis.nal.usda.gov) and NASS Highlights No. 2025-7, 2025 Agricultural Land Values and Cash Rents (December 2025); Farmland Partners Inc. (CIK 1591670) Form 10-K for 2025 (0001104659-26-017533) and Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026 (0001104659-26-088677); Gladstone Land Corporation (CIK 1495240) Form 10-K for 2025 (0001495240-26-000007), Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026 (0001495240-26-000021) and Forms 8-K of April 24 and July 15, 2026; Amber Farmland Investments PBC, formerly Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, PBC (CIK 1706350) Form 1-A POS (0001683168-26-003734), Form 1-SA for June 30, 2026 (0001683168-26-007503) and Rule 253(g)(2) supplement No. 3 (0001683168-26-007033); the latest Form D or Form D/A of every AcreTrader entity (175 on the EDGAR name search, 174 with a Form D) and FarmTogether entity (44), read from EDGAR XML with a saved script, and the Form D of Proterra Acretrader Farmland Fund LP (0002106807-26-000001); acretrader.com and farmtogether.com pages (statements attributed to them are company claims, not verified by us); Yahoo Finance daily closes for FPI and LAND through October 9, 2026 (market data, not an SEC filing); and the Vice President’s OGE Form 278e annual report for 2024. Sums, averages, percentages and ratios are our arithmetic. We have no relationship with any company named and earn nothing if you invest. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.