Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has increased, with foreign entities now holding over 43.4 million acres, representing nearly 2 percent of all U.S. land.
This surge is attributed to foreign-controlled wind energy farms. Concerns have been raised about national security, particularly regarding Chinese ownership near a military communications base.
Bipartisan efforts to restrict foreign ownership have faced challenges in Congress. (Trending: Supreme Court Delivers Historic Ruling on AR-15s)
The report also highlights the increasing use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, such as windmills and solar energy.
The issue has sparked bipartisan outrage and calls for stricter regulations.
“Foreign persons held an interest in over 43.4 million acres of U.S. agricultural land as of December 31, 2022,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated.
“This is an increase of over 3.4 million acres from the December 31, 2021 report and represents 3.4 percent of all privately held agricultural land … and nearly 2 percent of all land in the United States.”
“Foreign holdings of U.S. agricultural land increased modestly from 2012 through 2017, increasing an average of 0.6 million per year. Since 2017, foreign holdings have increased an average of nearly 2.9 million acres annually, ranging from 2.4 million acres to over 3.4 million acres per year,” USDA said.
“At best, this serves the interests of the companies and other countries, not America’s,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said.
“At worst, these purchases undermine our security.”
“I hope many of our colleagues agree, the Chinese government and other U.S. adversaries should own zero, zero agricultural land in our country,” Sen. John Fetterman said.
“They’re taking back our pandas. We should take back all of their farmland,” Fetterman added.
“Small farmers… face enough hardships, and they don’t need to compete with foreign governments buying our land.”
“China held 349,442 acres, which is slightly less than 1 percent of foreign-held acres,” the USDA report read, but “there is considerable interest in this topic.”
“Two Chinese-owned companies — Brazos Highland Properties, LP and Murphy Brown LLC (Smithfield Foods) — reported 102,345 acres and 97,975 acres, respectively, and were by far the largest Chinese reporters. Other top Chinese-owned reporters were Murphy Brown of Missouri (Smithfield Foods) (42,716 acres); Harvest Texas, LLC (29,705 acres); and Walton International Group (USA), Inc. (29,437 acres),” the report added.
“The total amount of cropland intended to be used for non-agricultural purposes as of December 31, 2022, was 266,316 acres (32 percent) and the amount of pastureland intended to be used for nonagricultural purposes was 187,465 acres (20 percent),” it said.
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