USDA Launches New Online Portal for Reporting Foreign-Owned Agricultural Land Transactions

Jan 27, 2026

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is launching a new online portal to streamline reporting of transactions involving U.S. agricultural land by foreign persons, which can include businesses and governments, under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA). The new online portal is part of a broader effort to strengthen enforcement and protect American farmland as USDA continues its implementation of the National Farm Security Action Plan (PDF, 1.2 MB).

“President Trump is putting America First, and this includes increasing transparency and scrutiny of one of our most valuable national assets, American farmland. We are working to improve reporting of foreign owned land in the United States. This move to streamline the reporting portal will increase compliance and assist our efforts to effectively enforce accurate reporting of interests held by foreign adversaries in U.S. farmland,” said Secretary Brooke Rollins. “The online portal will allow us to obtain verifiable information about foreign interests in American agricultural land and protect the security of our farmers.”

The new online portal is available at afida.landmark.usda.gov. Users can access the portal with Login.gov, a sign in service that provides secure online access to participate in certain government programs and reporting requirements.

The new digital portal will gather the same information found on the current form FSA-153 and those subject to filing may still file using the current FSA-153 hard copy form if desired. However, filers should not duplicate filings by using both submission options.

Source : usda.gov

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.