"Are Chinese buyers acquiring farmland in the United States?" The truth is——
On August 26th, the website of Consumer News and Business Channel in the United States published an article titled "Is China really Acquiring American Farmland? Here's What We Found" by Laura Strickler and Nicole Murder. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Local state and federal lawmakers in the United States are pushing for regulation of foreign ownership of real estate in the United States, as they are concerned that Chinese entities may pose a risk to national security by accumulating large tracts of farmland in the United States.
However, an evaluation by NBC News of thousands of documents archived by the US Department of Agriculture shows that Chinese buyers have rarely purchased US agricultural land in the past year and a half - in a country with 1.3 billion acres of agricultural land, Chinese buyers have purchased less than 1400 acres. In fact, out of these 1.3 billion acres of agricultural land, Chinese entities own less than 0.03%.
According to some archived documents from the Department of Agriculture regarding foreign purchases or leases of agricultural land in the United States, as viewed by NBC News, these documents record agricultural and forestry land purchased or leased by foreign countries from 35 states in the United States since January 1, 2022. The vast majority of transactions involve European wind power companies leasing land from American farmers to build wind turbines.
An Italian wind power company has disclosed that it has leased 40 new agricultural land in just one agricultural county in Illinois. This company has also leased agricultural land in at least four other states.
▲ Farm in Atlantic Town, Iowa, USA
NBC News also found that among these 35 states, from January 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023, the US Department of Agriculture received reports of 11 Chinese entities purchasing US agricultural land.
A spokesperson for Smithfield Foods stated that the company reported purchasing 186 acres of land in Missouri and North Carolina in 2022 and 2023, which complements its investment portfolio of less than 128000 acres of agricultural land in the United States.
!["Are Chinese buyers acquiring farmland in the United States?" The truth is——](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/45c4025b54736b014e30df178008cd68.jpg)
Smithfield Foods was originally an American company that was acquired by a Chinese company in 2013.
Jim Monroe, Vice President in charge of company affairs at Smithfield Foods, said, "There are some important issues that need to be resolved between the United States and China, but the issue of ownership of agricultural land in the United States is not among them."
In history, only 3.1% of the 1.3 billion acres of agricultural land in the United States - approximately 40 million acres - were owned by foreigners. Nearly half of the land owned by foreign investment is forest. According to records from the US Department of Agriculture, one-third of the 40 million acres of land owned by foreigners are owned by Canadian related entities.