Chinese investments in U.S. agricultural land are dispersed nationwide, with the largest concentrations in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Utah, and Florida.
White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro at a press conference last month cited Sun Tzu’s classic treatise “The Art of War”: “The acme of warfare is to win without firing a shot.”
At the same event, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled the National Farm Security Action Plan, which positions American agriculture as a critical component of national security.
Agriculture is “not just about feeding a family but about protecting our nation and standing up to foreign adversaries who are buying our farmland,” Rollins said.
Navarro and Rollins were referring to the purchase by Chinese investors of large swaths of U.S. land, often near military bases.
The purchases are attracting growing pushback at both state and federal levels.
Chinese entities held 277,336 acres of U.S. agricultural land as of Dec. 31, 2023, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report.
Agricultural land includes both forest and farmland. The USDA doesn’t record foreign-owned land that isn’t considered agricultural.
The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 requires that foreign owners of U.S. agricultural land report the names of individuals and entities that own the land, as well as their countries of origin and how the land is used.
Chinese investments in U.S. agricultural land are dispersed nationwide, with the largest concentrations in Texas (123,708 acres), North Carolina (44,263 acres), Missouri (42,905 acres), Utah (33,035 acres), and Florida (12,798 acres). Those five states collectively accounted for 93 percent of the acreage held by Chinese entities.
Meanwhile, 30 U.S. military installations now have Chinese-owned agricultural land within 100 to 150 miles, according to USDA data. Fourteen of those parcels are located in the same county as a military base.
A small number of companies dominate Chinese ownership of U.S. agricultural land.
Murphy-Brown holds the largest land area, totalling 132,310 acres, which includes 43,091 acres in its Missouri division. The company is a major U.S. hog producer and a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, which is controlled by Chinese state-owned WH Group Limited.
The second-largest land holder is Brazos Highland Properties with 86,994 acres.
Rounding out the top five are Harvest Texas (29,705 acres), U.S. AgriChemicals Corp. (11,263 acres), and Syngenta Seeds (2,452 acres). The five companies hold 95 percent of all reported Chinese-owned agricultural land in the United States.
Chinese ownership of agricultural land in the United States has undergone three surges over the past three decades, according to USDA data: the first in 1989, another in 2013 and a final wave from 2017 to 2019, each marked by notable acquisitions.
By Sylvia Xu
