(The Center Square) – Nearly 46 million acres of forest and farmland are held by foreign investors, including by countries hostile to America, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Foreign Farm Land Purchases map, unveiled to the public Thursday, highlights the increase of “foreign persons” buying up land across all 50 states and Puerto Rico, which many lawmakers have deemed a national security risk.
As of Dec. 31, 2023, approximately 45.8 million acres, or 71,562 square miles – slightly larger than Washington state – of American soil belongs to foreign entities.
While investors from Canada, the Netherlands, Italy and the United Kingdom cumulatively own more than 60% of that land, other foreign investors are acting on behalf of countries the U.S. considers hostile.
Chinese companies and investors, some directly involved in the Chinese Communist Party, own more than 277,335 acres of agricultural land across 30 states. Texas far outranks other states in terms of Chinese-bought land, with 123,707 acres owned. North Carolina and Missouri each have over 42,000 acres under Chinese ownership, while Utah has over 33,000 acres bought by China.
Other foreign adversaries have bought U.S. farm and forest land as well. Venezuela owns more than 90,000 acres of land across 17 states, Iran has bought more than 3,000 acres across 10 states, and Pakistan owns 2,100 acres across three states.
Additionally, over 3.08 million acres of U.S. land across 43 states are owned by foreign entities of unknown origin, with 1.38 million acres having “no foreign investor listed” and 1.69 million acres having “no predominant country code.”
Foreign ownership of U.S. land is largely unregulated. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978 is the only federal law overseeing foreign acquisition of agricultural land, relying on foreign entities to self-report farmland transactions to the USDA. This law is rarely enforced, providing an incomplete picture of how much American land is owned by which foreign entities.
State regulations provide little extra security. Many states have no restrictions at all on foreign land ownership, though in recent years lawmakers in more than 20 states have pushed for greater restrictions.
North Carolina, New Hampshire, Missouri and Texas have all recently taken steps to track, cap or outright ban foreign land buy-ups.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins cast the agency’s data release as the latest step “to defend the homeland” as part of the new National Farm Security Action Plan. She did not specify whether or how the federal government will curtail future land purchases by foreign entities.
“Gone are the days of foreign adversaries taking advantage of our farmland, farmers, and programs paid for by American taxpayers,” Rollins said Thursday. “Our work is far from done. We will continue to restore farm security and expose the extent to which our adversaries have targeted American agriculture.”
