The bill puts a limit on foreign ownership
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Indiana lawmakers have passed a bill designed to cap foreign ownership of farmland in the state.
Indiana Senators voted 47 to 2 in favor of Senate Bill 388 on Feb. 1.
The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Mark Messmer (Jasper), prevents foreign buyers from owning large pieces of American farmland.
Under this legislation, as of July 1, 2022, a foreign business entity may only own up to 320 acres of land in Indiana. Groups that have purchased land before the July 1 deadline will be able to keep their acres.
Countries like China, for example, purchase farmland in other countries.
In 2016, a Chinese developer and a mining group purchased the S. Kidman & Co ranch in Australia. This ranch owns about 185,000 cattle and controls almost 3 percent of Australia’s farmland.
In 2018, a Chinese business purchased 2,224 acres of land in the French region of Allier.
China isn’t the only country to purchase farmland outside its borders.
In 2011, Indian agribusinesses planned to spend $2.5 billion on farmland in African countries, The Guardian reported.
China’s purchases include the United States too.
Chinese owners controlled about 192,000 acre of U.S. farmland as of 2020, Politico reported.
Limiting foreign ownership in Indiana will help ensure American farmers and families are taken care of first, Sen. Messmer said.
“There is a growing problem in the US with China buying hundreds of thousands of acres of crop ground as part of their goal of (owning) as much farm property as they can under their one belt one road program. It’s important that the crop ground be used to provide food security for our country first,” he said, WEHT reported.
The bill now moves to the Indiana House of Representatives.
Foreign ownership of U.S. farmland has been on lawmakers’ radar since 2021.
In October, a bipartisan bill entered Congress designed to monitor foreign ownership of American agricultural land.
Foreign entities own a percentage of U.S. farmland.
As of December 2019, foreign investors owned about 35.2 million acres of farmland, worth about $63 billion and equal to almost 3 percent of all farmland, USDA data shows. This area is roughly the size of the state of Iowa.
Canadian investors own about 29 percent of this land but investors from more than 100 countries including the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and China own portions of U.S. farmland.