A bipartisan group of lawmakers is preparing new legislation aimed at restricting the ability of China and other foreign adversaries to purchase American farmland. The new bill is based on growing concerns about national security and control of critical resources.
The effort comes as Chinese ownership of US agricultural land has increased significantly over the past several decades. According to the US Department of Agriculture, Chinese buyers held about 2,000 acres of American farmland in 1980. That figure has since grown to roughly 300,000 acres.
Over the past decade, foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has accelerated markedly, rising from roughly 24-25 million acres around 2010 to nearly 46 million acres by the end of 2024 — a roughly 85 percent increase according to USDA data under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA). This growth, equivalent to adding an area larger than several Midwestern states, has been driven by a mix of timber/forest investments, cropland acquisitions, pasture leases, and especially long-term leases for renewable energy projects such as wind farms. While Canadian, Dutch, British, German, and other European investors account for the large majority of holdings, concerns have centered on entities linked to adversarial nations — particularly China — whose reported acreage grew substantially before recent modest declines.
This surge has fueled bipartisan alarm in Congress and state legislatures about national security vulnerabilities, including potential espionage risks near military installations, disruptions to domestic food supply chains, and foreign influence over critical resources. High-profile cases, such as the 2013 acquisition of Smithfield Foods (the nation’s largest pork producer) by a Chinese firm and the 2022 attempt by a Chinese company to buy land near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, amplified calls for tighter oversight.
“The consolidation of our farmland, the foreign adversarial ownership of farmland, especially from China and other places has really been creeping up on our country,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a recent interview.
The proposed legislation, led by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, seeks to tighten oversight of foreign land acquisitions. The bill, titled the Protecting US Farmland and Sensitive Sites from Foreign Adversaries Act, is expected to be introduced Thursday.
“Food security is national security, and we cannot allow foreign adversaries like China to buy up American farmland near our most sensitive military and critical infrastructure sites,” Moolenaar said.
The measure would require federal review of purchases involving farmland, ports, telecommunications systems, and properties located near military bases or intelligence facilities. It would also expand the authority of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to oversee such transactions when they involve countries considered adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The proposal follows previous scrutiny of foreign land deals, including a 2022 case in which federal officials determined that a Chinese company’s purchase of farmland near a North Dakota air base did not fall under existing review authority. Lawmakers backing the new bill say it is designed to close gaps that allowed that transaction to proceed without federal intervention.
Policy experts have increasingly framed farmland ownership as a national security issue. Adam Savit of the America First Policy Institute said stronger federal authority is needed to address potential risks.
“The federal government needs the jurisdiction and the tools to stop these transactions before they happen, not to negotiate mitigation agreements after the fact,” Savit said. “Legislation is needed to close these loopholes and protect critical American infrastructure and American communities.”
The bill has drawn support from lawmakers in both parties.
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Written by staff reporters at American Greatness. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
It’s about time that real action is taken on this matter.
There should also be action taken to stop/end Chinese operations from buying American food producers such as Smithfield.