The history and effectiveness of foreign land ownership laws in Indiana

Foreign Land Ownership in the US: A Report on State Laws and National Security

Earlier this year, Americans watched as a high-altitude balloon owned by China floated above the country from coast to coast.

When it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, U.S. officials stated the balloon carried intelligence gathering equipment.

The Incident and Its Implications

And despite President Biden’s statements that the incident was unintentional and “embarrassing for Chinese authorities,” having what many view as an adversary in domestic airspace riled state legislatures.

Laws Limiting Foreign Land Ownership

In response, a rash of new laws aimed at limiting foreign land ownership from countries such as China popped up across the nation.

1. According to the latest report from the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, 2.2 percent of Indiana land is held by foreign entities. That’s about 434,000 acres of land. Nationally, 3.1 percent of all agricultural land is held by foreign entities, with China making up 1 percent of that figure.

Micah Brown, a staff attorney at the National Agricultural Law Center, said that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen such laws aimed at stemming foreign land ownership.

“This issue has popped up at different times in our nation’s history, through different political flashpoints that were going on in the nation at that time,” he said. “This is just the most recent political flashpoint.”

In 2021, a U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese Guanghui Energy Company began the process of purchasing 140,000 acres of land in Texas 70 miles from Laughlin Air Force Base. The fact that Guanghui’s owner reportedly has ties to the Chinese Communist Party alarmed officials. In North Dakota, lawmakers started proposing legislation in that 2021 period,” he said. “And from 2021 to 2022, we had 12 states propose some kind of measure.”

Indiana was the first state to enact a new law during that period. Now, 35 states have proposed their own legislation to limit foreign land ownership.

Legislators have a popular phrase as to why these laws are so important.

“Food security is national security,” Brown said. “A lot of these proponents of the measures are saying ‘this is a national security measure.’ And that’s kind of the underlying reason for proposing these measures.”

Indiana’s Law: Senate Bill 388

Senator Jean Leising, who authored the bill along with Senators Mark Messmer and James Tomes, said they passed the law to protect agricultural land from those who might not have U.S. interests in mind.

“Agriculture is a $35 billion industry in Indiana annually,” she said. “And we have to make sure that we don’t put that big industry in jeopardy. Plus, it’s our food supply as well.”

The law prohibits foreign entities from owning land in Indiana, with exceptions.

• The law does not apply to land used for research or experimental purposes.
• It also allows foreign entities to own up to 320 acres of land for crops or up to 10 acres for timber production.
• Land used for raising or producing eggs is also excluded.

Senate Bill 388 gave a one-year moratorium on Russian businesses and citizens buying land in the state. That moratorium expired at the end of June.

Leising said she is satisfied with how the law currently stands.

“Since this was signed in ‘22, and there was no debate on this issue in 2023, I’m not actually looking for any additional legislation right now,” she said.

Potential Federal Legislation

There’s a chance that some form of these state laws will become federal law. In the current session of Congress, the Senate approved an amendment to the National Defense Appropriations Act to restrict certain investments from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Brown believes that even if the amendment becomes federal law, other states will likely continue pushing their own legislation to add even more restrictions.