Chinese purchasers have been buying up American farmland at an alarming rate.
In 1980, Chinese buyers owned 2,000 acres of American farmland, according to the Department of Agriculture. Now, they own 300,000 acres.
“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,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently told Fox News.
The House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, plans to introduce the Protecting U.S. Farmland and Sensitive Sites from Foreign Adversaries Act on Thursday. The bill seeks to close the “dangerous loopholes” that have allowed foreign adversaries, like China, to make such purchases near critical infrastructure and military bases.
“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 proposal mandates that any purchases involving farmland, ports, telecommunications infrastructure, and locations in proximity to military installations and intelligence facilities undergo a mandatory review. It also gives the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is headed by the Department of the Treasury, the ability to provide oversight of such land purchases if they involve enemy nations such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
CFIUS declared in 2022 that a Chinese food manufacturer’s purchase of farmland in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which was situated near Grand Forks Air Force Base and Cavalier Space Force Station, wasn’t a “covered transaction” in its jurisdiction.
If passed, the latest bill would ensure CFIUS would have oversight in such cases.
Adam Savit, director for China policy at the America First Policy Institute, said threats to the food supply have become a “national security” issue, adding that “the federal government needs the jurisdiction and the tools to stop these transactions before they happen, not to negotiate mitigation agreements after the fact. States have led on this issue for years, and federal law should reinforce their efforts.”
“Legislation is needed to close these loopholes and protect critical American infrastructure and American communities, and the provisions of this bill do just that,” Savit, a former senior adviser for national security at the Department of Agriculture, added.
The bill will be cosponsored by Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Neal Dunn (R-FL), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Zach Nunn (R-IA), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Pat Harrigan (R-NC), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), and Mike Thompson (D-CA).
