Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks introduced a bill last week that would prevent foreign adversaries from buying up the nation’s farm and timber lands in order to spy on the U.S. and interrupt its food supply chain — despite the fact that data shows investors from these nations own less than 1% of U.S. farm, timber and ranching lands, per the Department of Agriculture.

Alsobrooks, a Democrat, who last week co-introduced the bipartisan bill alongside two Republican Senators and one Democrat, called the bill “commonsense legislation that will make us safer and stronger.”

In response, the Chinese Embassy called the bill discriminatory and urged the U.S. to rethink its international strategy.

“The U.S. overstretches the concept of national security and deprives the right of institutions and citizens of particular countries to purchase farmland,” the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in an email.

While multiple experts The Baltimore Sun interviewed said scope of the threat is hard to determine because of difficulties collecting data on foreign investments, one food and national security expert says fears of food supply issues are overblown.

“The perception of the threat doesn’t match the reality of the threat,” said Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food and Water Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on food-supply concerns.

However, Welsh did say that there is an argument that some agricultural land purchases by foreign investors could be a potential national security concern, such as near military facilities.

The bill Alsobrooks introduced would codify the Agriculture Secretary’s role in reviewing farmland transactions made by investors from other countries to determine whether they pose threats to American security.

Purchases from China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are subject to “special review,” according to an email statement from Alsobrooks.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill in June. The Senate’s version is not yet scheduled for a vote.

Adding the Agriculture Secretary to certain conversations on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. was a part of a Trump administration July plan created to monitor investors in other countries purchasing farmland, arguing that certain investments could put national and food security at risk. The secretary was added to the committee on July 8 via a memorandum of understanding; this bill would make that appointment permanent.

The administration has pushed for prioritizing American businesses and limiting outside influence in the United States.

“This is typically discriminatory and violates the principle of market economy and international trade rules, and will eventually hurt the U.S.’s own interests,” China’s embassy spokesperson said. “We urge the U.S. to immediately stop politicizing trade and investment issues.”

Alsobrooks did not respond by publication to a follow-up request for comment on the embassy’s remarks.

Military assets and espionage threats

Maryland is home to several “sensitive sites,” Alsobrooks said in a statement to The Sun, namely Camp David, federal agencies and Fort Meade.

“It is absolutely critical these sites are safe from foreign adversaries,” she said.

Foreign investors are required to self-report agricultural land transactions to the U.S. Department of Agriculture under a 1978 law called the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act.

Danny Munch, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, described Alsobrooks’ bill as an effort to “streamline oversight” of foreign purchases of agricultural land between the Department of Agriculture which collects data under the 1978 law, and the committee that reviews foreign investments.

“There is concern within some of the agricultural community that some of the … bad actors that could exist would not be reported,” Munch said.

Still, he said, some farmers like being able to sell their land “when and to who they want.”

A plan for a Chinese firm to purchase land for a corn milling plant 12 miles away from an U.S. Air Force base in 2023 led to nationwide attention to investors from foreign adversarial nations purchasing land near military sites.

From 2016 to 2021, foreign purchases of U.S. agricultural land has increased by 40%, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Investors from Canada, The Netherlands, Italy and The United Kingdom owned the most U.S. agricultural land of any foreign country. Investors outside of the United States owned about 3.5% of agricultural land in December 2023, according to the Department of Agriculture. Investors from adversarial nations owned less than 1% of this foreign-held land.

“Foreign adversary” nations own a small percentage of agricultural land, with investors from North Korea owning no acres and from Russia owning 11 acres as of December 2023. Investors from China owned 277,336 acres of agricultural land, according to a Department of Agriculture report.

Vincent Smith, professor emeritus at Montana State University and the director of the Agricultural Policy Program at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that the annual rate of return on investments in agricultural land runs at roughly 6%.

“It has to do with worries about spying, intellectual property theft, and so on,” Smith said. Whether Chinese institutions should be able to access properties adjacent to military bases and American security assets is a point of “legitimate debate,” he said.

Smith said the potential risks from foreign countries acquiring this agricultural land include using the land for espionage as well as stealing intellectual property by monitoring farming techniques.

Iran-based investors owned 3,030 acres of U.S. agricultural land as of December 2023, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Majid Sadeghpour is the political director of the Organization of Iranian American Communities, a nonprofit that advocates for human rights and democracy in Iran and strongly opposes Iran’s current government. Sadeghpour’s group, which opposes “an appeasement policy towards Iran,” according to their website, was in favor of the bill, and its restriction on Iranian companies.

“We welcome U.S. government vigilance and measures which ensure individuals / organizations associated with the regime and its (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) do not financially benefit from investments in the United States,” he said in an email to The Sun.

Food supply concerns

The bill’s co-author also alleges that these countries pose a threat to the U.S. food supply chain.

In a statement to The Sun, Alsobrooks said that an insecure food supply chain represents a significant threat to the nation, adding that the bill would support Maryland’s agricultural communities while protecting the country’s food security.

The Maryland Grain Producers Association backed the bill for just this reason, its executive director said.

Lindsay Thompson, the association’s executive director, said the group is concerned that if unchecked, purchases of farmland by corporations headquartered in these countries could undermine the U.S. food supply by taking land from U.S. farmers, as well as stealing crop production techniques. She added that it could lead to financial hardships, cutting the food supply short.

“The secretary of USDA uniquely understands the entire agricultural system and the vulnerabilities that our farmers and agricultural companies could be subject to in these types of transactions,” Thompson said.

Welsh, however, said there is not significant evidence that the small percentage of foreign-held agricultural land could impact the nation’s food supply. She said, however, she believes foreign purchases of agricultural land should be monitored on the federal level.

“I think that pulls on a lot of emotions, but … I don’t think that there is a strong basis of evidence for the claim that China’s ownership of U.S. farmland threatens U.S. food security,” Welsh said.

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