Despite Reports, Data Shows Chinese Companies Own Little U.S. Farm Land

Thursday, July 11th, 2024 -- 10:00 AM

(Trevor Hook, Wisconsin Public Radio) Lawmakers and citizens are raising concerns about Chinese companies purchasing U.S. land.

But, according to Trevor Hook with Wisconsin Public Radio, a new analysis paints a different picture of who owns and leases American farmland. Wisconsin is among more than two-thirds of all states that are considering or have enacted laws limiting or banning foreign ownership of land, Politico reported in April.

A Wisconsin state statute restricts foreign private investment in land. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 created a national system for collecting information on foreign ownership of American farmland.

A report this year from the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended the U.S. Department of Agriculture improve the reliability and timeliness of its data. Also this year, U.S. Sen.Tammy Baldwin introduced a bill with bipartisan support in an effort to improve reporting and enforcement of existing federal laws on foreign farmland ownership.

U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who is running against Baldwin in Wisconsin, recently claimed that China is buying up large stretches of American agricultural land. Wendon Zhang, an assistant professor of economics with Cornell University, joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” and poured some cold water on that idea.

Zhang and two other researchers recently published an article, “Mapping and Contextualizing Foreign Ownership and Leasing of U.S. Farmland”, in the 2024 Journal of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Zhang said his recent research found that China and other “adversarial countries” hold zero acres of land in the “Lake Region” of the U.S., a space that includes Wisconsin. His team found that Canada, Denmark and Portugal are the top three holders of Wisconsin’s foreign-held land.

“The bottom line is, if you’re concerned about significant Chinese holdings of agricultural land in Wisconsin, the evidence seems to say the contrary,” Zhang said. However, Zhang also found that more than 51 percent of Wisconsin’s foreign-held agricultural land is categorized without a prominent country code, meaning investors in a particular property come from multiple countries.

Zhang said it’s possible China or other countries might hold shares small enough in some types of holdings to fall outside of what is reported to the government, leaving them underrepresented in USDA data.

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