Chinese Farmland Purchases Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Foreign ownership of American farmland has risen sharply in the past decade, with Chinese land holdings alone increasing more than 25 times over that period.U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse says the more he digs into this issue, the more concerned he becomes …
NEWHOUSE … “We really don’t have an accurate measurement of what foreign entities are buying in this country as far as agricultural land or assets.”
The Sunnyside Republican says we should be doing a better job of recording such transactions …
NEWHOUSE … “There are requirements that they’re supposed to report, but frankly the USDA has not done as good a job as they should have in gathering that information or requiring entities that are purchasing land to provide that information.”
And so …
NEWHOUSE … “This last week, Representative Tom Emmer from the state of Minnesota and I, along with almost 20 other members of the House, sent a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, asking for information about the process that USDA uses for compiling and reporting on foreign purchases of U.S. agricultural land.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the questionable record keeping of U.S. farmland purchases by foreign buyers.