Texas leads the nation in privately-owned working lands, which account for 139M acres, or 81% of the state's entire land area. These important lands provide substantial economic, environmental, and recreational resources that benefit both residents and visitors alike.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas contains 8 of the top 15 rapidly growing cities in the nation.
• From 1997 to 2022, the Texas population increased from 19M to 30M residents, an increase of 55%, or over 1,100 new residents, daily.
• In the last five years alone, Texas gained over 1.7M residents, roughly 950 people per day.
• The majority of the population increase (88%) occurred within the state's top 25 highest total population growth counties. These counties account for only 9% of the total land area of the state, yet 75% of all Texans reside within these 25 counties.

Historically, land market values served as a strong indicator of rural land demand. Like more traditional home real estate values, rural land market values vary by location, land use, and property size, among other factors.

• The largest increases in land values were observed, as with previous reports, in proximity to major metropolitan areas.
• The average appraised market value of Texas working lands was $3,021/acre in 2022, a 55% increase since 2017 ($1,951/acre) and a 505% increase over the 25-year period ($499/acre in 1997).

For both small and mid-sized ownership classes, ownership fragmentation and conversion continue to be closely related to proximity to major urban areas and/or transportation corridors. As urban centers grow in human population, the demand for surrounding rural land increases, raising land market values, and subsequently increasing landowners' incentive to subdivide or sell their working lands for suburban/urban use. In contrast, consolidation of working lands may be driven by the ability of prospective buyers to capitalize on both land values and land availability, appearing to occur in certain regions of the state (e.g., High Plains and Rolling Plains Ecological Regions).

• Texas lost over 17K working farms and ranches in the last five years, from 2017 to 2022, though still boasts almost 2,500 more operations than 25 years ago (1997) with over 230K total operations.
• Average ownership size increased from 509 acres in 2017 to 541 acres in 2022.
• Small farms and ranches (<100 acres in size) represent 60% of all ownerships, but only account for 3% of all working lands.
• Large farms and ranches (>2,000 acres in size) saw the sharpest five-year decline in Texas Land Trends history, with a loss of over 1,000 operations.

From 1997 to 2022, Texas lost approximately 3.7M acres of working lands (i.e., converted to non-agricultural uses) with a decline of over 1.8M acres converted in the last 5-year period.

• The annual land conversion rate within the top 25 highest growth counties over the 25-year period was about 67K acres per year (45% of total loss), compared to the remaining 229 county annual average of more than 81K acres per year (55% of total loss).
• Accounting for most working lands in the state, grazing lands have been steadily decreasing since 1997, losing and/or converting roughly 6.7M acres to other land uses for the 25-year period.
• Wildlife management acres have significantly increased in recent years, now totaling approximately 6.9M acres, up from about 94,000 in 1997.