Right. Most of it is owned by the llc the farmer set up for thier land, and/or the family trust set up to prevent the land from being split into ever smaller parcels by inheritance.
I inherited farm land from my grandfather. I am very much not a farmer, I do not want to live in Southern Illinois, but I don’t want to give up the land, so I rent the land to a farmer with adjacent property.
I realize that’s not really the point of this article—this is more about huge firms buying up non-trivial amounts of land.