U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), introduced the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure (AFIDA) Improvements Act, which would codify legislative oversight recommendations to update the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act and equip the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to combat foreign adversaries’ ownership of American agricultural land:

“Foreign entities purchasing American farmland opens the door to serious national security threats from countries like China that aim to undermine the United States, and we’ve already seen nefarious attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to acquire farmland near U.S. military bases in Texas,” said Sen. Cornyn. “This legislation would enhance existing measures by strengthening enforcement and promoting data sharing so that we can more easily identify foreign adversaries purchasing U.S. farmland with malicious intent.”

Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Katie Britt (R-AL) are additional cosponsors of this legislation. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) is leading companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Text of the bill is available here.

Background:

The AFIDA Improvements Act would:

• Codify recommendations published in January 2024 by the legislative branch’s oversight entity after it conducted a study of AFIDA that found that the USDA’s AFIDA process has been ill-equipped to combat the foreign ownership of American agricultural land by foreign adversaries;
• Increase information sharing between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and USDA;
• Require updates to the AFIDA handbook and establish a deadline by which USDA must set up an online AFIDA system;
• And require AFIDA reporting for foreign persons holding more than one percent interest in American agricultural land. 

Under AFIDA, foreign entities are required to disclose the transactions of American agricultural land to the USDA. According to USDA, foreign investors own more than 40 million acres of agricultural land across the United States. Additionally, between 2010 and 2021, Chinese ownership of American agricultural land increased from 13,720 acres to 383,935 acres.