Oklahoma governor says China is buying up the state’s farmland. The data he cites points to other countries

Key Takeaways

• Oklahoma has seen some of the nation’s largest growth in foreign-owned land in recent years, leading to a political debate over whether new restrictions should be imposed.
• Nationwide, foreign-owned acres have nearly tripled since 2005, now topping 40 million. Dozens of proposals have been made in Congress to limit foreign companies and individuals from buying more land.
• While most of the growth is from energy companies, large international corporate food producers also own thousands of acres nationwide.

USDA still uses a ‘paper-based approach’ to foreign-owned land records

The Oklahoma constitution bans foreign ownership of land, but court rulings have essentially allowed for the practice, including a 1981 Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that upheld a Canadian investment firm’s right to own land as long as it’s qualified to do business in the state.

Beginning in the 1970s, state lawmakers also carved out an exception for swine and poultry producers, hoping to attract an industry with several foreign-backed corporations.

Foreign companies that buy or lease land in the United States must report that ownership to the USDA as part of the Agriculture Foreign Investments Disclosure Act of 1978. But critics say the records, often called AFIDA, are faulty because they rely on property owners to self-report, and enforcement resources are lacking.

“Currently, the AFIDA reporting system uses a paper-based approach to data collection that has changed little since the start of the program,” Gloria Montaño Greene, a deputy under secretary at USDA, wrote on Sept. 27 to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, which held a hearing on the topic of foreign-owned land in the United States.

“Companies print out legal descriptions from their internal electronic land management systems and mail their hard copy AFIDA filings in bankers’ boxes to USDA,” she continued. “We currently have no way to electronically identify the geographic location of AFIDA filings more specifically than at the county level.”

The ownership records also do not specify the land’s intended use, making it hard to determine if a company uses its land to build a factory, run a wind farm or raise cattle.

Smithfield, the Chinese-owned meat producer, owns land in three Oklahoma counties, while Kronseder Farms, Inc., a German-owned hog producer, owns more than 7,300 acres in western Oklahoma, according to AFIDA filings.

Some foreign-owned companies operating in Oklahoma are not found in the USDA’s records.

Poultry producer O.K. Foods, owned by the Mexican company Industrias Bachoco, has multiple facilities in Oklahoma, according to its company directory. But none of the locations appear in AFIDA filings. O.K. Foods did not respond to a request for comment.

The exception for swine and poultry producers, along with pro-business court rulings, appeared to spur growth in Oklahoma’s foreign-owned land, which doubled from 1980 to 2000, topping 54,000 acres, according to USDA records.

But the largest spike came from 2005 to 2010 when the number of foreign-owned acres in Oklahoma quadrupled to around 263,000.

Most of the growth was from North American and European companies — attracted to the state’s vast land and consistent wind — buying and leasing land to build wind and solar farms. Oklahomans sometimes pushed back on large wind turbines built near residential neighborhoods, but the companies’ nationality was rarely a factor.

Foreign-owned land nationwide remained steady at around 15 million acres during the 1980s and 1990s, according to USDA records.

Since 2005, the number of foreign-owned acres across the country has nearly tripled, topping 40 million last year.

State lawmakers used foreign land data to push back against marijuana farms

In 2018, Oklahoma voters legalized a robust medical marijuana system with few regulations, creating a modern “gold rush” within the industry as thousands of new cannabis growers quickly bought land.

The state issued more than 8,000 grower licenses within a few years. By 2022, Oklahoma was producing 64 times more cannabis than licensed patients could legally consume, according to a study commissioned by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, the agency that issues licenses.

Some rural communities became frustrated with the new marijuana farms that quickly appeared, sometimes surrounded by barbed wire fencing and threats to take legal action if pesticides used on nearby farms contaminated the marijuana fields. Lawmakers passed dozens of new laws in recent years aimed at better controlling the industry, including a new system that attempts to track every plant in the state.

In 2022, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics claimed Oklahoma was the top origin for marijuana found in many other states and that foreign-backed cartels were behind many of the operations. In April of this year, five Chinese individuals were charged in federal court with conspiring to manufacture marijuana in Oklahoma and distribute it out of state, following an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Many of the marijuana grow operations controlled by foreign individuals are actually owned by a local resident and the state grow license — the only way to track marijuana grow operations — is registered to an Oklahoma resident or company, according to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. While illegal and foreign-owned marijuana farms don’t appear in USDA’s land records, officials say that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist.

“Illegal marijuana grows are responsible for an alarming influx of organized crime into our communities, particularly from Mexican drug cartels and Chinese crime syndicates,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in September when announcing a new organized crime task force focused on illegal marijuana growers.

Oklahoma lawmakers seized on the issue by passing Senate Bill 212 earlier this year, which bans a foreign individual or entity from buying land in Oklahoma to use for marijuana production.

Like the governor, State Sen. David Bullard, a Durant Republican who co-authored the bill, conflated USDA data that showed Oklahoma’s growth in foreign-owned land with the possible growth of illegal marijuana grow facilities in the state.

Arkansas moves against seed business owned by a Chinese company

The push to ban Chinese landowners may be strongest in Arkansas, where Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently announced she was forcing a subsidiary of Syngenta Seeds, LLC, which is Chinese-owned, to sell 160 acres of land it owns in the northeast part of the state.

“This isn’t about where you’re from; we welcome Chinese Americans, Russian Americans and anyone else who’s given up foreign oppression for American freedom. This is about

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

SDGs Addressed or Connected to the Issues

1. SDG 2: Zero Hunger
2. SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
3. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
4. SDG 15: Life on Land
5. SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

Specific Targets Based on the Article’s Content

• Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding, and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality.
• Target 7.2: By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
• Target 11.1: By 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums.
• Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.
• Target 16.5: Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms.

Indicators Mentioned or Implied in the Article

• Indicator 2.4.1: Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture.
• Indicator 7.2.1: Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption.
• Indicator 11.1.1: Proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements, or inadequate housing.
• Indicator 15.1.1: Forest area as a proportion of total land area.
• Indicator 16.5.1: Proportion of persons who had at least one contact with a public official and who paid a bribe to a public official, or were asked for a bribe by those public officials, during the previous 12 months.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: kosu.org

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