Many pieces of legislation are targeted to limit China’s involvement in the U.S.
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Lawmakers in multiple U.S. states are drafting or have introduced legislation designed to limit foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.
State legislators in Utah and Montana are among those who’ve recently signaled intentions to introduce or pass bills that would ban or limit entities from China or other countries from owning American farmland.
In Utah, for example, HB218 would prohibit any foreign government or entities that are “owned, controlled, operated or maintained by a foreign government,” from acquiring land in the state.
“Do we really want any foreign country coming in and buying our agricultural land, our forests or our mineral rights?” Rep. Kay Christofferson told the Associated Press, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. “If it would interfere with our sovereignty – especially in an emergency situation or during a threat to national security – I think that we’d lose our ability as a state to be independent and self-sufficient.”
In Montana, Senate Bill 203 would also prevent foreign entities from acquiring, leasing or selling land interests in the state.
The bill in Montana came after the U.S. shot down a Chinese balloon floating over the state last week.
“If you care about the security of our country, if you care about food security, definitely it’s something that everyone should be paying attention to,” Raylee Honeycutt, executive vice-president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, told KTVQ.
Lawmakers in those two states are not the only ones to introduce such legislation.
In total, lawmakers in at least 11 states, including North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, California and Indiana, are in some stage of introducing or passing similar bills.
Members of Congress are also working on such laws.
Republicans introduced the Agricultural Foreign Investment Transparency Act on Dec. 8.
Currently there’s no federal law restricting the amount of private U.S. farmland that can be owned by foreign entities.
Foreign entities held an interest in 40.8 million acres of U.S. farmland in 2021, a Congressional Research Service report says.
For context, the state of Georgia has an area of about 38 million acres.