House Republicans Called for Investigating Foreign Ownership of U.S. Farmland

Senior Republicans of the House Agriculture and Oversight Committee have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate foreign investment in U.S. farmland and question whether Communist China’s acquisition could pose a national security threat to the U.S. More than 100 House Republicans asked government regulators to investigate foreign investment in American farmland, including China, which they said may cause national and food security problems.In a letter, Lawmakers led by Reps. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and James Comer (R-KY) on Saturday called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study foreign farmland ownership and how the U.S. government monitors acquisitions. Republicans say that foreign investment and ownership have increased due to unreliable data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which may be “underestimated”.The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 requires foreigners who own U.S. land to disclose their shares to the Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the past few years, it has been found that the data of the U.S. Department of Agriculture do not fully cover the foreign investment.Republicans pointed out in the letter that foreign investment and ownership of agricultural land in the United States roughly doubled between 2010 and 2020. A December 2020 U.S. Department of Agriculture report also found that foreign investors hold about 37.6 million acres of agricultural land in the United States.