U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin partnered with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa to introduce the Farmland Security Act of 2025. The objective is 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,” Baldwin says. “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.”
USDA has cataloged foreign ownership of approximately 45 million acres of American agricultural land, an 85 percent increase since 2010. Baldwin argues these investments have the potential to impact food security and national security. In 2020, exports of U.S. chicken products from Brazilian-owned Pilgrim’s Pride Corp jumped 24 percent, disrupting 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.
“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,” Baldwin says.
Baldwin and Grassley’s Farmland Security Act of 2022 included new requirements that the USDA is implementing to address this national security concern. The Farmland Security Act of 2025 takes additional steps to support transparency and better understand the scale and impact of foreign ownership.
What The Bill Does
- 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.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Wisconsin Farmers Union endorse the legislation.
