More Than Half of U.S. Farmland Is Rented — Much of It on a Handshake

By Nathan Brooks

More than half of farmland in the United States is typically rented — under cash-rent or crop-share arrangements — and a striking share of those deals still runs year to year on little more than a handshake between neighbors. That figure, and the oral-lease tradition behind it, anchors a November 12, 2026 analysis from an agricultural economist at Nebraska Extension arguing that trust is the least-measured asset in American agriculture.

The old joke about economists, the author concedes, is that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Measuring value is hard. But the column's core claim is blunt: the sector can't afford to underestimate the value of trust, because it sits underneath business decisions, market development and policy formation alike.

Why do handshake leases persist?

Farm management and legal experts routinely stress written leases to document terms and avoid conflict. Reality diverges. Oral leases have been prevalent enough that statutes now govern how much notice a landowner must give to terminate one, yet the exact terms are often still under negotiation right up until the lease term begins.

Producers and landowners offer a practical defense. If you can't trust a handshake, the argument goes, you probably can't trust the other party enough to sign a contract either. A written agreement helps resolve conflicts once they arise. It cannot prevent the underlying conflict from destroying the relationship. Agreeing on terms and meeting them is ultimately a function of trust.

What does trust change for market access?

Plenty, according to long-established research from the Center for Food Integrity. Consumers don't grant producers the freedom to operate unless they fundamentally trust the food production system. When trust lags, regulatory attention rises — across farm structure, animal welfare, environmental stewardship, food safety and nutrition.

For value-added producers, the stakes climb higher. Products beyond basic commodities only carry additional value if their attributes can be documented and communicated to buyers. Those attributes often aren't observable, so producers must build traceability and verification practices that let a buyer trust the product is what it claims to be. Direct-to-consumer sales often price the producer's story and connection as much as the raw product itself.

The author, who teaches food policy, frames the local foods movement the same way: local is best defined as social distance, not geographic distance. Consumer demand tracks how close buyers feel to the producer — a function of story and relationship built over time.

Does trade run on the same currency?

Yes, at the country-to-country level. Current U.S. agricultural trade conflicts with several partners illustrate the point. Global trade negotiations foundered over the past 20-plus years without consensus, so regional and bilateral talks flourished — and even those agreements now face revision as economic conditions and political priorities shift toward deal-by-deal bargaining.

There's no mechanism to force sovereign nations to comply with trade rules or dispute rulings, the analysis notes, except countervailing actions that make both countries feel the pain. Dispute resolution stays complicated, slow and costly, and underlying disputes are rarely fully resolved. Economists' touted gains from trade depend on willing buyers and sellers — and that willingness rests partly on trust in an enforceable rules-based system.

Public policy works the same way, even amid declining institutional trust. The author's formula for influence: have the facts to be relevant, tell a story to be heard, and build a relationship to be respected — with that relationship earned over time through integrity.

Nebraska Extension, the author notes, ranks as a trusted information source in the organization's own Rural Poll research. Even that trust, the column closes, relies on continuing to build relationships with producers, consumers, students and agricultural stakeholders across the state — a reminder that credibility, like a handshake lease, renews itself only one year, and one interaction, at a time.