A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox.

Its current offerings include 83 acres of almond trees in the San Joaquin Valley, advertised as “an opportunity to invest in a water-secure almond orchard in the world’s most productive almond-producing region.” This property also boasts of senior water rights on the Kings River, suggesting that the land will continue to turn a profit long into the future—a dream of farmers and investors alike.

AcreTrader is just one of many companies launched in the past decade that facilitate the sale of farmland, which has increasingly become a staple in investor portfolios. Recently, it was revealed that this includes the investment portfolio of vice presidential nominee JD Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio.

Vance invested up to $65,000 in private investments in AcreTrader during his stint as a venture capitalist, according to his 2022 financial disclosure to the Senate ethics committee. The investment firm Narya Capital—which Vance launched in 2020 with backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel—was a vehicle for these investments, and a key backer in early funding rounds of the farmland startup. And while Vance is no longer listed as a partner at Narya Capital, according to his 2023 financial disclosure, he appears to still be an investor in the firm—or more technically, multiple legal entities with names including Narya.

“There’s no indication that Vance has divested from AcreTrader, and there’s every indication that that investment remains in place,” said Lisa Graves, the executive director of True North Research, an investigative research group. She points to how Vance sold off his stock in “Narya Capital Management LLC” in 2023, but that’s not the same as the (albeit similarly named) investment vehicles used to invest in AcreTrader.

In a social media post, Sarah Taber, a farm and food systems strategist and the Democratic candidate for North Carolina commissioner of agriculture, describes AcreTrader as “like Uber for buying U.S. farmland.” Like Uber, AcreTrader makes it easier for more buyers to gain quick access to an ordinarily expensive asset. “And who’s one of its key investors, profiting off of every sale?” Taber asks. “JD Vance.”

For Taber, Vance’s large investment portfolio—in AcreTrader and a slew of other opaque start-up companies—raises questions about conflicts of interest and the mixing of venture capitalist and political pursuits. Vance’s 2022 portfolio also included AppHarvest, the start-up company that promised to revolutionize farming and bring good jobs to eastern Kentucky, only to quickly implode.

“There’s an ethical case for any venture capitalist to disinvest from their interests before running for political office,” said Taber, in an interview with Civil Eats. “We don’t know what he’s incentivized to do.”

AcreTrader streamlines the process of investing in valuable farmland across the U.S. and Australia—from the flooded rice fields of the Mississippi Delta to the vast tracts of high-yielding corn in the Midwest—by placing the farmland in a limited liability corporation, or LLC.

“You can then purchase shares in that [LLC] through a simple online process that takes just minutes,” the company explains in a tutorial video for prospective investors. “AcreTrader handles the administrative details for you, and works with experienced farmers to manage the land.”

“It’s just the expansion of the Real Estate Investment Trust [REIT] business model into farmland,” said Taber. “It’s basically like a mutual fund for real estate.”

With the REIT model, instead of buying a single condo, you buy a share in a company that owns 100 or 200 condos. This investment vehicle was established by Congress in the 1960s, opening the doors to large-scale real estate investments for smaller investors. It’s a model that has enabled real estate hedge funds to buy up large swaths of the housing market, driving up demand and prices. Recently, companies have begun applying a REIT-like model to land.

AcreTrader isn’t technically a REIT, but it’s similar in that it enables a wider pool of investors to passively invest in farmland, reaping the benefits of one of the most reliable assets to produce a return. But instead of buying shares in one company, like a REIT, investors buy shares in individual LLCs that own the property.

This ownership model makes it hard to tell who is invested in the farmland and, therefore, more challenging to evaluate ethical conflicts and other risks of this investment, Taber observed. (Vance is listed as an investor in AcreTrader, not the individual LLCs, according to his Senate disclosure forms.)

After a fixed period, typically between five and 10 years, investors sell the land almost inevitably at a higher price than they purchased it, given that farmland appreciates over time. As AcreTrader’s website boasts, “Land is one of the oldest investment classes in existence, which in many cases has produced significant wealth over generations.” On top of their earnings from the sale, investors potentially benefit as well from renting the land to a farmer, without being involved in managing it.

AcreTrader is part of a larger trend of the financialization of farmland. The last two decades have witnessed a sharp uptick in investor interest in farmland as investors seeking to hedge against inflation and stock market volatility have turned to it as a reliable bet. Between 2008 and 2023, the amount of farmland purchased by investors increased by a staggering 231 percent.

In recent years, bipartisan political leaders have pushed to curb foreign investments in U.S. farmland, citing the potential for a national security risk. Earlier this week, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill restricting citizens from China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran from purchasing U.S. farmland. But even so, farmland is more concentrated in the hands of U.S. investors than ever before: Bill Gates, The Wonderful Company, and billionaire John Malone are the top owners of U.S. farmland.

This investor-driven farmland “gold rush” has come with many unintended consequences for agriculture and farmers. It has led to the consolidation of farmland in regions with high-value land, while pricing out the farmers unable to compete with major investors for farmland. This has led land-strapped farmers to either drop out of farming or become tenant farmers, operating farms on rented land.

“What we’ve seen in reality is when investment interests come into communities, they drive up land prices and push farmers to increasingly marginal ends,” said Paul Towers, the executive director of Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). He says that he consistently observes farmers struggling to buy land, often outbid by investors who have the ability to pay for land entirely in cash.

Even when investors seek to keep farmland in operation, rental arrangements can be challenging for farmers, because it gives them less freedom and security over their land, especially if they have a short-term lease. Towers has observed that leasing (rather than owning) farmland can make it harder for farmers in their network to make the kind of long-term investments in their land necessary for pursuing environmental and climate solutions

“How can a farmer make significant investments in their soil health, if they don’t know if they’re going to be on that property next year?” said Towers. “Why would they invest in hedgerows for beneficial insects and pollinators? Why would they develop more water-holding capacity on their farm?”

AcreTrader promises to be different, however, claiming to partner with farmers in “stewarding land” and “supporting livelihoods.” This includes the language of their leases: “We structure our leases according to industry leading sustainability standards, encompassing specific conditions related to soil fertility, erosion control, groundwater protection, and input management,” states the company’s website. AcreTrader declined a request to provide Civil Eats with a copy of a lease, or to explain the process for determining its sustainability standards.

“For AcreTrader’s typical buyers, the AcreTrader Platform connects U.S. investors to farmers who want to grow their operations, and we believe it’s a good thing to see capital formation in favor of helping the American farmer,” wrote Rob Moore, the company’s vice president, in an email. He also added, “Senator Vance has no involvement in AcreTrader’s operations or strategic direction.”

Some caution against painting all investors with a broad brush, pointing to a potential role for some forms of investors in helping facilitate land access for farmers in some cases. “I do believe that there is an opportunity for investors to think about how to deploy non-destructive capital to access the purchase of farmland,” said Gaby Pereyra, a farmer and the co-director of the Land Network Program at the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. She points to Dirt Capital, which works with farmers in financing farmland, including through shared ownership models. This differs from AcreTrader’s model, which is aimed at helping investors, not farmers, buy farmland.

The ownership of farmland can also be especially important to Black farmers who have been systematically denied land access, and therefore, denied one of the most reliable investments for generating wealth. “Most Black farmers for historical reasons, for family reasonsare seeking to own their land…because it’s related to reparations,” said Pereyra.

“For Latino farmers, on the other hand, the ownership of land is related to self-determination, on being able to do the type of operation that they want,” Pereyra has observed in her work. In some cases, she’s seen that a rental agreement can provide self-determination, but it largely depends on the relationship with a specific landowner.

And while AcreTrader emphasizes “land stewardship,” Pereyra pointed to how the company currently limits these rental partnerships to “row crop, permanent crop, and timber.” This leaves out diversified vegetable operations, the farms that are often engaged in some of the most innovative, climate-friendly practices. These are also the farms that tend to struggle to access crop insurance, lacking the guarantee of a stable income even when crops fail—which may deter investors.

In general, the company mainly lists farmland with high-value crops that can deliver short-term profits, but aren’t always best for the environment. Take California’s almond industry, a water-intensive crop. “Almonds already use an estimated 28% of the reliable water supply available to California agriculture,” according to AcreTrader’s analysis.

However, the company assures investors that “California’s almond industry isn’t going anywhere,” even as the state implements water restrictions. Instead,AcreTrader advises that investors seek out almond orchards with reliable water rights, expecting these properties to appreciate over time. On the other hand, the company advises against investing in almond orchards without water access, expecting these acres to shrink and be removed from production. It’s an approach to investing that appears to be based on a market analysis of the projected value for farmland and specific crops per region, rather than environmental or climate concerns.

“What a lot of these these kinds of investment models fail to see is that farming is far more than just a short-term return [on an investment],” said Towers. The farming systems that we want to be investing in for our future—farms that can survive droughts, wildfires, erratic water supplies, and other climate extremes—are not always the methods that turn a profit the quickest.

And while it’s hard to fully evaluate AcreTrader’s model, it’s clear that it allows an investor-backed startup to play a role in steering the future of agriculture and the U.S. food system. It begs the question: Should we trust investors with this power—even the many investors that claim to help farmers—over the most fertile, water-rich farmland in the U.S.?