Foreign ownership of U.S. farmland grew last year, according to a recent USDA report, but not for a key U.S. adversary. Foreign entities bought nearly 3-and-a-half million acres of U.S. farmland and forest in 2022, up more than eight percent to more than 43 million acres.
China’s holdings fell a bit from 2021 to 350-thousand acres, less than one percent of foreign-owned acres. That’s still too much says Washington State Republican Dan Newhouse.
U.S. officials have previously voiced concerns about U.S. adversaries owning land near sensitive U.S. military sites as China is accused of doing in North Dakota. That’s a threat Pentagon Assistant Secretary Ely Ratner says the administration takes seriously.
Dan Newhouse has introduced legislation which would broaden the U.S. Treasury Department’s control over foreign U.S. farmland ownership.
Senate legislation also requires USDA to have a permanent seat on the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or ‘CFIUS,’ which sponsors may try to include in a new farm bill. USDA plans to update how it collects data to study the impact of foreign land holdings on rural communities and the exact location of foreign-owned acres.
