The Census Bureau has issued the 2007 Census of Agriculture reports for Illinois, and, no surprise, most farmland is not owned by the farmer who works it. 62% of farmland in the state is tenant-farmed, up from 58% in 2002. (table 9, pdf) . Owner-operators are the majority of farmers, but have much smaller farms, 107 acres and $47,726 gross revenue, compared to part-tenants (784 acres and $407,013) and farmers who rent all their land (439 acres and $254,814) (table 65, pdf)
Nationally, however, more than half of farmland is operator-owned. And these owners paid more than $7 billion in interest on loans secured by real estate.