What's so bad about owning agricultural land?

Why is it that no companies own farmland?

Companies that want to syndicate investments in farmland are not able to do it, except on a piecemeal basis.

None of the Agribusiness companies in USA own land. They own grain elevators and terminals and mills, but not farmland. They extrude vegetables into shapes, cook them, add flavorings, package into frozen dinners, but when it comes to actually growing the ingredients, they "source" it. Why? You would think these big companies would want to control even the early part of the supply chain, to have better control over costs. Now, they are subject to the gyrations of the commodity markets, which reflect not only drought and labor costs, but speculation as well.

Even Cresud in Argentina doesn't exclusively own farmland--they bought a bunch of real estate in Buenos Aires. The attention span of even rare companies that seek to invest in ag real estate is short.

Is farmland too boring? Do shareholders only lust for the shiny objects that big companies build on top of farmland, but not the actual land itself? Ask Ted Turner if land is boring--he managed to convert plenty of Time-Warner stock into ranches.

REITs: plenty of shopping center ones and apartment complex ones, but farmland ones? Not so much.