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Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts introduced the PLOT Act – or Property Location Oversight and Transparency Act – in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. The new bill would amend the 1978 Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act to require stricter tracking of foreign land ownership.
In a press call with reporters, Ricketts said the bill would give the federal government more information on which foreign countries and governments own U.S. farmland.
Ricketts said the amount – and location – of Chinese-owned farmland is a national security risk, which is why he introduced the PLOT Act.
“They have targeted sensitive sites surrounding army bases and airfields,” Ricketts said. “They’ve exploited our legal process to purchase land surrounding Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is a national security risk. We cannot let them use American ag land to weaken U.S. national security. We can't let Communist China spy on our military bases from our cornfield.”
Ricketts said Chinese ownership of American agricultural land grew 30 times between 2010 and 2021, with nearly 277,000 acres of farmland owned in 2023.
“Nebraska farmers and ranchers are proud of their land and the crops they grow on it,” Ricketts said. “We can't let foreign adversaries like Communist China get away with purchasing our land.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for overseeing foreign land ownership and relevant regulations and would ensure compliance with the PLOT Act.
Currently, Ricketts said, foreign land ownership must be reported when a “person associated with a foreign adversary” has 10% or more ownership interest, or when a foreign person owns more than 50% of the domestic company that controls the farmland.
“The PLOT Act will lower this to 5% and 10% respectively,” Ricketts said. “Lowering reporting thresholds captures smaller foreign ownership stakes that currently go unreported.”
Additionally, foreign land purchasers must submit maps of the land they own, which the USDA would make available to the government and the public in an online portal.
Under the bill, the USDA would collaborate with national defense officials to identify potential national security concerns, “including proximity to military installations, critical infrastructure, and sensitive environmental areas.”
The latest draft of a new Farm Bill from the U.S. House Agriculture Committee had similar provisions.
Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen said the improved data collection will help directly support national security.
“It's certainly a financial issue to start with, and it becomes a national security issue based on who it is that owns the land and what else they do with the land that they then own and control,” Hansen said.
Hansen used the example of Chinese company Smithfield owning and operating a pork processing operation in Nebraska.
“What did China get by being able to buy Smithfield? It got access to everything that you could possibly ever want to know about domestic U.S. food production, food safety, food processing, food retailing… The whole nine yards of everything that you could possibly know about the U.S. food industry is acquired,” Hansen said.
Smithfield, Hansen said, was allowed to be operated by the Chinese government under LB176, passed in 2016 by the Nebraska Legislature. The law allows meatpacking corporations to also own hog feeding operations, making way for larger operations to do business in Nebraska. Hansen said that included foreign companies.
“Why would you make it easier for the Chinese government to take over ownership and control of the hog industry in the state of Nebraska?” Hansen said. “Why would that possibly be a good or positive thing to do for the state of Nebraska and for hog production in general?”
Proponents of the bill said it would bring more business to Nebraska and allow business owners to control the whole chain of production. At the time, Ricketts signed the bill into law as Nebraska’s governor.
And amid what Hansen calls “the worst farm crisis since the mid-1980s,” he said lawmakers in Washington need to be putting together a more comprehensive Farm Bill as well.
He said farmers are calling the Farmers Union and Farm Crisis Hotline more and more to discuss financial struggles.
“It's not to visit about the weather or foreign ownership of ag land, it's because they can't get their loans renewed,” Hansen said. “I want to see some leadership coming out of the U.S. Senate from ag states – including Nebraska senators – that says to ag leadership, ‘You know we're not going anywhere. We're not doing anything on any issue, until we get a new, updated and approved farm bill passed.”