Bipartisan legislators advocate foreign agriculture land acquisition oversight

A group of lawmakers recently forwarded correspondence to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials, citing concerns regarding the lack of oversight of foreign acquisition of domestic agricultural land.

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) joined 29 bipartisan colleagues in sending the letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, focusing upon an internal USDA memo determining the agency failed to assess or follow through to penalize failures to report foreign acquisition of domestic agricultural land between 2015 and 2018.

The reporting action is required under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA).

“We must always protect America’s most vital, yet finite, resource—our farmland,” Newhouse said. “The United States’ most forbidding adversaries, especially the Chinese Communist Party, will continue to undermine our democracy and threaten our heartland if we do not take action. USDA’s failure to conduct oversight to protect local farmers, rural communities and our national security is inexplicable. The American people deserve answers now.”

In the letter, the lawmakers cited the USDA Farm Service Agency foreign investment disclosure handbook stipulates failure to report disclosures, late-filed reports, or any reports that contain incomplete, misleading, or false information can result in penalties up to 25 percent of the market value of the foreign person’s interest in the land. According to the disclosure handbook, the penalty is in place to ensure USDA can enforce reporting and data collection of U.S. agricultural land being purchased by foreign actors.

“Food security is national security, and we must work to protect the finite amount of agricultural land we have in America,” the legislators concluded in the correspondence. “We cannot allow failures to report foreign acquisition of U.S. agricultural land to go unpunished. We are requesting you provide any and all correspondence regarding USDA’s failure to assess penalties.”