Efforts are underway in Congress to protect the nation’s farmland from foreign entities.
Representative Dan Newhouse out of Washington introduced a series of bills in order to do so, including the Prohibition of Agricultural Land for the People’s Republic of China Act, which would stop foreign buyers associated with China’s government from purchasing and ranching U.S. real estate.
The Republican says it is frustrating the USDA has no system in place to keep track of American ag lands purchased by foreign buyers but they are looking into it.
“We are trying to be as creative as possible to come up with a system that will allow USDA to better monitor the sales of agricultural assets at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. And so, those are the questions that we’re looking at right now.”
Newhouse says the problem has simply been overlooked given there are more than 8,000 different counties throughout the country where these transactions take place.
