Between 2019 and 2020, the total area of agricultural land in the United States held by companies whose shareholders are linked to China increased by nearly 30%, according to the USDA.
Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ernst is among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who see it as a threat on Capitol Hill in March.
“The Chinese are everywhere and we have to be careful what they are doing here in the United States,” she said.
As lawmakers on both sides consider a move to limit sales of US farmland to certain foreign entities, China is only 18th out of 109 countries investing in US land.
The US Department of Agriculture said China-linked investors owned about 162,000 hectares of land in the United States – and farmland was only a fraction of that.
Besides Congress, several state legislatures are also considering imposing new restrictions on foreign land ownership.
Recent attempts by China-linked investors to acquire land near military installations in Texas and North Dakota have raised concerns about the risk to US national security.
However, Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agriculture and consumer economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, points out that land owned by foreigners is usually managed by local entities, often American farmers.
“The earth doesn’t know who it belongs to,” Sherrick told American media. “So I think in terms of agricultural policy, it’s probably not that important who owns it.”
According to Sherrick, farmland is an attractive investment for potential buyers.
“Their returns are positively correlated to inflation regardless of the time periods we take. Very high average returns over time and very low systemic risk,” he explained.
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