Senators Baldwin, Grassley Roll Out Bipartisan Bill to Crack Down on Foreign Investment in Farmland, Protect Rural Communities

Farmland Security Act of 2025 increases transparency and penalties for evading reporting requirements; invests in research on impacts of foreign agricultural activity

Foreign ownership of American farmland has increased 85 percent since 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced the Farmland Security Act of 2025 to build on their work to safeguard rural communities and protect American farmland from being secretly bought up by foreign investors. The bipartisan legislation will build on a Baldwin-Grassley law to ensure that all foreign investors, including “shell companies,” who buy American agriculture land report their holdings, strengthen penalties for those who evade filing, and invest in research to better understand the impact foreign ownership of American farmland has on agricultural production capacity.

“America’s farmland is critical to the health of our rural communities and our national security. But when foreign investors own farmland or our ability to process food, it can put our national security, domestic food supply, and local communities at risk,” said Senator Baldwin. “Our bipartisan legislation will help bring to light foreign investments in rural America, so we know who is buying up land critical to all of our safety and the future of our agricultural communities.”

“Foreign purchases of American farmland needlessly increase competition for young and beginning farmers and potentially threaten our national security. Family farmers and ranchers have a justified cause for concern. Our commonsense legislation provides the resources needed to monitor these sales and protect against risks they may pose. It also increases penalties for violators, especially shell corporations, who fail to report or misreport their acreage. I’ll never stop fighting to support family farmers and protect our farmland,” said Senator Grassley.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has catalogued foreign ownership of approximately 45 million acres of American agricultural land, an 85 percent increase since 2010. These investments have the potential to impact our food security and national security. For example, in 2020, exports of U.S. chicken products from Brazilian-owned Pilgrim’s Pride Corp jumped 24 percent, disrupting our domestic food supply during a global pandemic. Additionally, while the current foreign ownership data reports that land owned by Chinese interests represents a small fraction of the overall foreign investments in American agricultural land, the purchasing of agricultural land by Chinese interests near military installations poses potential national security risks.

Senators Baldwin and Grassley’s Farmland Security Act of 2022, which was signed into law as part of funding legislation for 2023, included new requirements that the USDA is implementing to address this national security concern, including the transition to digital filings of foreign purchases of domestic agricultural land; the creation of a publicly accessible database of certain disaggregated foreign ownership data to enable research by outside entities into these ownership trends; and reporting by USDA to Congress on the impact these investments have on family farms, rural communities, and the domestic food supply.

The Farmland Security Act of 2025 takes additional steps to support transparency and better understand the scale and impact of foreign ownership by:

• Requiring research into foreign ownership of agricultural production capacity and foreign participation in agricultural economic activity in the United States;
• Requiring USDA to conduct annual compliance audits of no less than ten percent (10%) of the reports to ensure completeness and accuracy of filings;
• Amending report to Congress to require research into foreign entities’ agricultural leasing activities and the impact it has on rural communities, family farms, the domestic food supply;
• Requiring research into trends of foreign-owned “shell corporations” purchasing American agricultural land;
• Requiring USDA to provide annual training to state and county-level staff re: identification of non-reporting foreign-owned agricultural land;
• Striking the cap on fee of 25% of the agricultural lands valuation for failing to report or misreporting foreign-owned acreage;
• Requiring a fee of 100% of the agricultural lands valuation for shell corporations that are failing to report or misreporting foreign-owned acreage, except in cases where the shell corporation remedies non-filing or defective filing within 60 days of notice by the Secretary; and
• Authorizing $2 million annually for the activities prescribed under the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, as amended.

This legislation is endorsed by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. This legislation was also introduced in the U.S. House by Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA-03) and John Moolenaar (R-MI-02).

“When foreign investors buy up broad swaths of American farm and timberland, we lose control over resources in our own backyard, our cultural identity and self-sufficiency suffers, and small family operations across Southwest Washington get squeezed out,” said Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez. “At a time when we import 40 percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables we consume each day, this bipartisan legislation will help us strengthen our food supply at home and the national security that comes with it.”

Full text of this legislation is available here. A one-pager on this legislation is available here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.