Foreign Ownership Of U.S. Farmland Is Focus Of Oct. 20 Webinar

FAYETTEVILLE, ARK.

   Several states have enacted laws or introduced legislation to limit foreign ownership of farmland in the United States. The National Agricultural Law Center will provide a status report on those laws during a webinar on Oct. 20.

   According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, nearly 3 percent, or 35.2 million acres, of U.S. farmland is foreign-owned as of December 2019.

   “Advocates say legislation limiting foreign ownership of farmland limits the ability of powerful economic competitors such as China and Brazil to have control over the U.S. food supply,” said Harrison Pittman, director of the National Agricultural Law Center. Pittman will present the webinar.

   “This isn’t a new idea, because states began passing laws regulating the ownership of agricultural land as early as the 1920s and Congress passed the Foreign Investment Disclosure Act in 1978,” Pittman said. “In the federal law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was tasked with collecting data on all farmland owned by international investors.”

   “On Oct. 20, I look forward to sharing background on the issue of foreign ownership of ag land as well as bringing everyone up to speed,” Pittman said.

   The webinar is scheduled for noon-1p.m. EDT/11 a.m.-noon CDT. Learn more and register for the webinar at https://bit.ly/3nivh3y.  ∆