My Take | Much ado about nothing when it comes to China’s ‘takeover’ of US farmland
- New Cornell University study finds farmland ownership by adversary states – China, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Russia – collectively accounts for only 1 per cent of all the foreign-owned agricultural land in the US
There are so many “China threats” manufactured by Washington that a new one practically comes up every few weeks.
One that sounds more credible in recent years has been the supposedly relentless Chinese purchase of valuable American arable land. After all, Beijing has made domestic food security a top priority and, to do that, it needs to control global food supply chains. And it has the added value of taking food off the tables of hard-working American families. What’s not to like, then, for those dastardly Chinese communists?
I am not sure if the US Congress-funded United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the original source of many a China threat, came up with this “farmland alarm”, but its May 2022 report, “China’s Interests in US Agriculture: Augmenting Food Security through Investment Abroad”, certainly helped to get the ball rolling.
“China has gone abroad to address its needs through investments and acquisitions of farmland, animal husbandry, agricultural equipment, and intellectual property (IP), particularly of GM seeds,” it said.
“The United States is a global leader in all of these fields. These efforts present several risks to US economic and national security … If further consolidations and Chinese investments in US agricultural assets take place, China may have undue leverage over US supply chains. China’s access to US agricultural IP may also erode US competitiveness in agriculture technology that supports food production.”