U.S. Farmland and Foreign Ownership Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Foreign adversaries are purchasing U.S. farmland at an alarming rate, and the federal government is struggling to keep up.
U.S. Representative Dan Newhouse says for the sake of food safety and national security, we are working on answers to this serious problem …
NEWHOUSE … “I should add, with the cooperation of the United States Department of Agriculture, they understand that this is an important issue. The Department of Defense understands it’s an important issue. And it’s a bipartisan idea in Congress that we need to have a better handle over who is actually purchasing agricultural assets in the United States.”
And is seems that these purchases are ramping up in recent years …
NEWHOUSE … “Well, it does. The trends have been concerning. Like I’ve said before, the amount of ag lands purchased by Chinese businesses has increased by a factor of 10 over the last decade.”
And that, Newhouse says is alarming …
NEWHOUSE … “And so, it’s something that I think we want to make sure we figure this out before this problem gets out of hand. So this is a very proactive, preemptive approach to get some control and some monitoring over what is actually happening throughout the country.”
Foreign investment in U.S. ag land grew to roughly 40 million acres in 2021. In Washington state alone, nearly 1,718,000 acres of farmland is owned by foreign entities.
