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China has 20% of the world’s population, but only 7-9% of the world’s arable land is covered, and it suffers from extreme food shortages. To combat this crisis, the Communist Party of China (CCP) has devised a decades-old strategy to purchase millions of acres of American farmland, livestock, seeds, and food lines from the United States.
Indeed, in a decade, China’s U.S. farmland ownership jumped from $81 million in 2010 to $1.8 billion in 2020. You don’t need a top secret security clearance to imagine the dangerous economic and national security implications of China maintaining undue influence. more than the food supply of the United States. Food security is not always at the top of the defense and national security debate, but it should be.
In the coming days, members of Congress will reintroduce the Agriculture Protection and Promotion of Safety (PASS) Act. The law prohibits China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from investing in or buying land or businesses related to American agriculture. It also adds the Secretary of Agriculture as a permanent member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
The PASS Act fixes a major vulnerability in America’s food security. There are currently no legal restrictions on foreign investment in American farmland. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not hesitate to pass this much-needed measure to free our food supply from foreign control. China will act.
China’s interest in US agriculture poses security threat, warns federal report
Every year, China poses new challenges to America’s food security. In 2013, with the backing of the Chinese Communist Party, his WH Group of Chinese companies acquired Smithfield Foods, the largest US pork producer. The acquisition is China’s largest purchase of U.S. assets to date, valued at $4.7 billion. The acquisition included her 146,000 acres of American farmland in North Carolina, Missouri, Utah, Virginia, Colorado and Oklahoma. In one deal, with little backlash, the Chinese government gained significant influence over America’s food supply infrastructure.
In Texas, a Chinese billionaire with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party has purchased over 140,000 acres of land. In fact, in 2020, he purchased his 15,000-acre land in Val He Verde County, which is also home to Laughlin Air Force Base. Without interference from the US government, China purchased land right next to a premier training ground for military pilots, though the purchase caused an uproar from officials at the time. Hard to represent the district, existing laws allowed the trade.
Farm workers make their way across fog-covered fields while digging weeds from a tobacco harvest near Warsaw, Kentucky.
(A2008)
A year later, another Chinese company with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party, the Fufeng Group, purchased land in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to build a new wet corn plant. Of course, this land is just 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, where some of the United States’ top intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets are located. According to one government report, “The location of the land close to the base is particularly convenient for monitoring the flow of air traffic to and from the base, among other security-related concerns.”
Americans deserve to have a government that at least prevents enemies from purchasing our arable land, especially if such land is in close proximity to military installations. Ignoring it shows a betrayal of trust between the government and the people it seeks to serve. Congress must pass the PASS Act and prevent a national security crisis before it’s too late.
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Let me be clear: Congress is not the only one with a role to play. We also need a Commander-in-Chief who puts America’s food and farmland security first. CFIUS, made up of nine cabinet-level officials appointed by Biden, should step up the foreign investment vetting process. If China’s purchase of strategic farmland doesn’t justify her CFIUS intervention, it’s hard to imagine why.
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And finally, state governments also need to be strengthened. Policymakers in Texas and North Dakota are already taking action, and many other states must follow suit. Legislatures must pass laws to create the necessary protections against foreign acquisitions of strategic agricultural land. By working together at all levels of government, we can ensure food supplies for generations to come.
It doesn’t always take top-secret top-secret espionage to figure out what the enemy is planning next. Sometimes the threat is right in front of us. The time has come for our elected leaders to start paying attention.
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