Hinson Co-Leads Bipartisan Bill to Protect U.S. Farmland from Foreign Ownership

Washington, D.C. - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA-02) joined Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE-02) and others to introduce the bipartisan AFIDA Improvements Act to improve the process of tracking purchases of U.S. agricultural land by foreign entities.

The legislation follows a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is ill-equipped to fully combat foreign ownership of agricultural land by foreign adversaries like China, and will improve USDA’s oversight of foreign land purchases. 

“We can't sit on our hands as Communist China buys up our most valuable resource – our land – in a nefarious attempt to exert control over our food supply and undermine our national security. I am proud to lead this bipartisan effort to expose the full extent of foreign land ownership in the U.S. and ensure we can prevent our adversaries from purchasing another acre of American soil.” – Congresswoman Ashley Hinson

Background:
Currently, under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA), foreign entities are required to disclose the transactions of American agricultural land to USDA.

In October 2022, Hinson joined House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer in requesting the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full review of USDA’s implementation of AFIDA. Hinson also pressed USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong on USDA’s failures to enforce penalties for non-complaint foreign entities from 2015 – 2018 during a House Appropriations Committee hearing in March 2023.
 
According to USDA data from December 2021, foreign investors own over 40 million acres of agricultural land across the United States. Additionally, between 2010 and 2021, Chinese ownership of American agricultural land increased from 13,720 acres to 383,935 acres.

Hinson has helped introduce several pieces of legislation, including the Prohibition of Agricultural Land for the People’s Republic of China Act, to prohibit Chinese-owned entities from purchasing agricultural land in the United States.