Candidates for Oklahoma governor are spotlighting foreign farmland ownership as a top voter concern, but conflicting claims, carve-outs in state law and gaps in federal data complicate the issue.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently made six recommendations on how USDA can improve its reporting on foreign-owned land across the country.
The sense Iowa’s agricultural land is both scarce and gaining value has driven the average price to a record-setting $11,400 per acre last year. Now Iowa farmers are bidding not only against neighbors, but out-of-state investors including professional athletes, well-known billionaires and the Mormon
Federal and Midwestern state lawmakers are seeking to crack down on Chinese ownership of U.S. agricultural lands, amid security tensions and the shooting down of a "spy balloon" spotted over Montana. Federal data shows that foreign holdings of U.S. farmland increased by an average of 2.2 million acr
Citing concerns about China, House Republicans ask GAO to look at foreign ownership. The 1978 Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires holders to report ownership to the USDA. There are gaps in the data reported.
Since 2011, the USDA has only assessed 10 fines under AFIDA, worth $115,724, according to records obtained by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting through the Freedom of Information Act. And no fines were assessed in 2015, 2016 or so far in 2017.
Over the past decade, foreign companies have been investing in agricultural land in the United States at a record pace, according to a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of USDA data. The data was compiled from 1900 to 2014 under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (A
