Like tariffs, America is getting ripped off by foreign ownership of agricultural lands, and we’re getting fed up with it.
Around the first of the year, the American Farm Bureau Federation came out with a report on the eye-opening number of acres of foreign ownership of ag lands in the U.S., which showed an increase of 1.58 million acres over 2022-23.
Foreign ownership is similar to tariffs for the U.S., as any country can come to America and buy ag lands, but Americans are not allowed to own lands in their country.
Foreign ownership of ag lands became a national issue when those countries started to report ownership to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency.
It seems foreign owners were not reporting the number of acres they owned, and in 2024 the USDA started to fine countries a total of $1.2 million, including $13,374 for non-filings and the remainder for non-filings in a timely manner.
Well, this got everyone’s attention, and the foreign owners under the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978 started to send in their reports.
In 2024, the USDA saw a record number of AFIDA reports filed since the program’s inception. Of the 2,095 additional reports, 1,686 were tied to 2023 acquisitions and 409 filings were detailed transactions from prior years which should have been reported in years past.
This increased number of acres was most likely caused by the growing Congressional and public focus on foreign ownership of American ag lands. It was about time.
In the latest AFIDA report, released in 2023, 45.85 million acres of American ag lands were owned by foreign investors, which is around 3.61 percent of privately held ag lands in the U.S.
Canadian investors own the most acres of foreign landowners with 33.5 percent, or 15.35 million acres, of total foreign-owned lands. Other foreign investors are those from the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Ireland and Portugal.
I also know Saudi Arabia owns some large alfalfa farms in Arizona, and they are in trouble with the state for overuse of water rights.
The one country that really riles us up for owning ag lands in America is China.
As many know, China has been acquiring ag lands close to strategic areas such as military bases, but the U.S. has finally caught on and made them give those lands back.
China, Russia and Iran’s ownership of private ag lands has declined the last couple of years as the U.S. has become stricter. I’ll never understand why the U.S. has let these three countries buy any private lands in our country.
America has to wake up and be very cautious of who comes into our country and buys private lands, especially our enemies.
We are all proud of our private land rights, and we don’t want to share them with most foreign investors.
It just doesn’t work out, especially with our enemies. Where have we gone wrong?
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper. He can be reached at: Dennis@WYLR.net
