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Chinese purchasers have been buying up American farmland at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
In 1980, Chinese buyers owned 2,000 acres of American farmland, according<\/a> to the Department of Agriculture. Now, they own 300,000 acres.<\/p>\n \u201cThe consolidation of our farmland, the foreign adversarial ownership of farmland, especially from China and other places has really been creeping up on our country,\u201d Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently told<\/a> Fox News.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cdangerous loopholes\u201d that have allowed foreign adversaries, like China, to make such purchases near critical infrastructure and military bases.<\/p>\n \u201cFood 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,\u201d Moolenaar said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n