HARLOWTON, Montana — Near the banks of Montana’s Musselshell River, cattle rancher Michael Miller saw a large, white orb above the town of Harlowton last week, a day before U.S. officials revealed they were tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the state. The balloon caused a stir in the 900-person town surrounded by cattle ranches, wind farms and scattered nuclear missile silos behind chain link fences.
Miller worries about China as a rising threat to the U.S. Like many throughout the country, Miller wonders if stricter laws are needed to bar farmland sales to foreign nationals so power over agriculture and the food supply doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. His concerns are increasingly shared by U.S. lawmakers after the Chinese balloon’s voyage over American skies inflamed tensions between Washington and Beijing.
In Congress and statehouses, the balloon’s journey added traction to decades-old concerns.
Foreign entities and individuals control less than 3% of U.S. farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Of that, those with ties to China control less than 1%, or roughly 600 square miles. Yet in recent years, transactions of agricultural and non-agricultural land have attracted scrutiny, particularly in states with a large U.S. military presence.
Limitations on foreign individuals or entities owning farmland vary widely throughout the U.S. Most states allow it, while 14 have restrictions. No states have a total prohibition. Of the five states where the federal agriculture department says entities with ties to China own the most farmland, four don’t limit foreign ownership: North Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Utah.
Ownership restriction supporters often speculate about foreign buyers’ motives and whether people with ties to adversaries such as China intend to use land for spying or exerting control over the U.S. food supply.
In Utah, concern has centered on a Chinese company’s purchase of a speedway near an army depot in 2015 and Chinese-owned farms exporting alfalfa and hay from drought-stricken parts of the state. Lawmakers this year are considering two proposals that would, to varying degrees, ban entities with ties to foreign governments from owning land.
“Do we really want any foreign country coming in and buying our agricultural land, our forests or our mineral rights?” asked Republican state Rep. Kay Christofferson, who is sponsoring one of the bills. “If it would interfere with our sovereignty — especially in an emergency situation or during a threat to national security — I think that we’d lose our ability as a state to be independent and self sufficient.”
Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the scramble to limit foreign land ownership tracked rising U.S.-China tensions. Welsh shares concerns about U.S. adversaries purchasing land near military bases but said worries about China controlling the food supply were overblown.
“China is just a small slice of the bigger picture of foreign ownership,” Welsh said. “When it comes to food security, the biggest threat is that foreign owners can potentially pay a higher price for agricultural land, which then drives up prices.”
The restrictions have encountered resistance in states with strong property rights. In Wyoming, two proposals to restrict foreign land ownership failed this week even though Republicans who control the statehouse were sympathetic to concerns about China expanding its reach.
“We’ve had a lot of problems with China lately in the air. Big balloons flying over us. We look at this as a national and state security bill, for Wyoming and the United States,” said Rep. Bill Allemand, a Republican from Casper.
Lawmakers on Monday rejected Allemand’s proposal to ban ownership of more than an acre of land by people from countries considered state sponsors of terrorism, including Russia and China. Skeptics said it would be difficult to police due to the complex web of title companies and holding corporations in agricultural real estate.
“This is very easy to get around,” Republican Rep. Martha Lawley said. “We may end the day feeling good about ourselves, but we’ve opened up to a lot of liability.”