This land is your land, this land is my land, this land is...whose land? The Trump administration is streamlining the process for reporting and tracking foreign ownership of American agricultural land. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a new online portal that can track foreign government or business involvement in land transactions. The portal is part of the USDA's National Farm Security Action Plan launched last year.
This tracking tool is especially important for Texas, which has the largest amount of foreign-owned agricultural land in the U.S.---about 5.3 million acres. "That sounds like a lot, but it really is only about 3.6 percent of the land in Texas that is used for agriculture," says Gary Joiner, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau. "A lot of those interests from foreign entities are timber, forestry, and more recently the large-scale renewable energy projects we're seeing in our state."
Most of the foreign-held land in Texas is not owned by hostile nations. "Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden are the top holders of agricultural land in Texas," says Joiner. "The headlines and concerns are related to China and other countries that are seen as more adversarial, or a threat...those are much smaller land holdings."
Nevertheless, Texas still has the largest portion of Chinese land holdings, with China pursuing more. Last year, Texas passed a law to restrict land and business purchases from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea after China unsuccessfully tried to buy land near a Texas Air Force Base in 2021.
Joiner believes the new portal will help keep the state's ag land secure. "If for any reason we find ourselves vulnerable or susceptible to foreign interests for our food supply, I think as a country we become very vulnerable from a national security standpoint," he says. "We're a huge driver and an important driver of agriculture, and we need to be able to produce our own food and feed our own country going forward."
Photo: Universal Images Group Editorial