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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Tuesday, May 07, 2024
USDA staff fail to “sufficiently verify” the accuracy of foreign land ownership data and are slow to share information on those landholdings with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the Government Accountability Office says in a long-awaited audit.
Foreign holdings of U.S. land rose by 3.4 million acres in 2022, with 45% of the growth occurring in Colorado, Alabama, and Michigan, according to a new Agriculture Department report. These holdings, however, represent only a small share of the nation’s overall farmland.
The average age of farmers today is 58, setting up a need to adopt new government policies to attract and retain new farmers and protect the agricultural industry’s ability to meet growing world food needs.
The Agriculture Department is working to update its system for tracking agricultural land leases and purchases to appease lawmaker demands, but staffing and funding limitations have limited the agency to "low-cost" options, a department official told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday.
Members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party have proposed a bill that would to expand the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.'s jurisdiction over land purchases and require the panel to take food security into account in its reviews.
House GOP appropriators proposed Wednesday to slash fiscal 2024 funding for USDA by one-third, in part by eliminating some climate-related funding, restricting Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s use of the Commodity Credit Corp. spending authority and expanding work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
A bill aimed at preventing foreign governments and "state-controlled" businesses from purchasing agricultural land is nearing passage in North Dakota's state legislature.
Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, a GOP leader of congressional efforts to curb foreign influence in U.S. agriculture, has returned $17,500 in campaign donations to political action committees representing the Chinese-owned agribusiness companies Smithfield Foods and Syngenta.
