A 1978 law requires USDA to collect ownership data, but there are gaps, we learned. China isn't the biggest foreign owner of U.S. agriculture land.
Farmland ownership by Chinese companies prompts more states to consider limits
Foreign companies have owned American farmland for decades, but, recently, a groundswell of states have attempted to curb the practice.
As to why, many state legislators cite purchases or potential purchases from companies based in one country — China.
Citing China has become the norm despite its companies holding a relatively small amount of agricultural land. Chinese companies own at least 300,000 acres, or less than 1% of all foreign-held agriculture land. In comparison, Canadian companies own millions of acres.
Still, it's difficult to know with certainty whether those figures are accurate. The federal government's tracking of foreign holdings is notoriously faulty, and it leaves the true amount of agricultural land held by foreign entities open to speculation.
Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is supposed to monitor foreign investment in farmland under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, reports Johnathan Hettinger (right). That act, passed in 1978, requires all foreign holders of agricultural land — whether that is owners or long-term renters — to report those holdings to USDA.
However, the USDA largely relies on volunteer reporting, via a FSA-153 report. Each year, the USDA’s Farm Service Agency releases that information in an annual report.
Investigate Midwest obtained a database via the Freedom of Information Act detailing all the land in the annual report. The database has significant gaps. There are more than 3.1 million acres without an owner listed.
Seresto collars, the popular parasite treatment for dogs and cats, has come under criticism in recent years, after Investigate Midwest and USA Today reporting showed that Seresto is the most complained about product in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency history.
The collar has now been the subject of 101,486 incident reports, including at least 2,698 pet deaths and 894 incidents involving humans, according to an incident report obtained by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity and shared with Investigate Midwest.
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Thank you for meeting us Nov. 3 in Iowa City
Oh, the stories!
About 70 people attended the Nov. 3 storytelling event at The Graduate hotel in Iowa City last week. This was an Investigate Midwest IowaWatch event that focused on adventures in travel. Here are a few photos from the event:
Bottom: Featured speakers included Erin Jordan, an investigative reporter for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Investigate Midwest board member. She talked about her time in Nepal.
Top left: Attendees played trivia in between storytellers and also had a chance to enjoy drinks and food, a silent auction, and live music. It was a great crowd.
Top right: Iowa Public Radio's Charity Nebbe (left) hosted the event. (Next to her is the 2020 IowaWatch summer intern Danielle Gehr, now a producer for IPR.) The IPR crew was fantastic.
ICYMI: IPR will broadcast the stories on Nebbe's "Talk of Iowa" program. Details to come. (Much appreciated.)
More news
This map and story are by The Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter. Reporter Yanqi Xu reported and wrote this.
The water many Nebraskans drink, shower with and take for granted is high in nitrate. And, after decades of inaction, the problem is growing worse. The statewide median nitrate level in our groundwater has doubled since 1978. State and local governments test Nebraska wells — identified by the gray dots on the map — in part because we have long known water quality is a problem. The 6,000-some red dots are wells that, when last tested, had a higher nitrate level than the EPA drinking water standard.
