Sept. 17, 2025 – “Farm security is national security” became policy last July when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its National Farm Security Action Plan that spotlighted threats from foreign owners of farmland.

Quiet Wisconsin farms had become a recognized and threatened strategic asset.

Concern preceded the current USDA initiatives, which implement recommendations from a 2024 General Accounting Office (GAO) Report.

States have begun to strengthen their laws against foreign-owned investment of farmland. In Wisconsin, legislators are proposing tighter limits to an obscure 1887 law.

The bumper crop of regulation creates a moving target for due diligence on rural real estate transactions.

A Chinese Mill

In North Dakota, a 370-acre land sale for a corn milling plant raised concerns in 2022 because the buyer was a Chinese company – and the land was located within 12 miles of Grand Forks Air Force Base.^[1]

The Cold War airfield for B-52 and B-1B intercontinental bombers now serves as a base for sophisticated military drones.

Although the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) knew about the pending transaction, it lacked jurisdiction because the base wasn’t defined as a sensitive military installation under its regulations.^[2]

The deal fell through only because opposition persuaded local officials to deny the necessary permits.^[3]

Based on Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) reports through Dec. 31, 2023, the USDA’s interactive map shows that foreign landowners own 45,850,252.1 acres of farmland, 641,240.7 of it in Wisconsin.

Chinese landowners hold 277,335.8 acres of American farmland, according to the USDA, far less than citizens of countries like Germany, Denmark, France, Portugal, or the United Kingdom. The foreign country whose citizens own the most is Canada at 15,350,746.5 acres.

Paper Trail

It wasn’t as though the U.S. lacked protection under existing laws, but the principal statute came when the Soviet Union was the military threat and oil-rich Arab states challenged American economic security.

Like the yellowed newspapers and faded magazines that reported those 50-year-old fears, the law hadn’t reached the internet age.

Congress passed AFIDA, 7 U.S.C. sections 3501-3508, principally to address a fear in 1978, as now, that foreign competitors would outbid Americans buying farmland.^[4]

AFIDA is only a reporting requirement. “Any foreign person who acquires or transfers any interest, other than a security interest, in agricultural land” has 90 days to submit the required report to USDA.^[5]

That means filling out form FSA-153 and submitting it to the Farm Services Agency office in the county where the land is located. If the foreign owner holds land in multiple counties, it may request filing in Washington, D.C., but doing so is not required.^[6]

Penalties may accrue for noncompliance, but that depends on proving a negative – discovering a foreign owner who failed to report.^[7]

With this paper system, the USDA was defending farm security against computer-powered dangers that can hit at the speed of light.

GAO Report Card

The GAO became involved after 51 members of Congress complained to secretaries of agriculture, defense, and treasury about national security dangers demonstrated by the 2022 cropland purchase outside Grand Forks.^[8]

The report filled in the details about what the USDA did wrong – and where it was doing nothing at all.

Relying upon self-reporting, owners spread across more than 3,000 county offices with fewer penalties assessed because it had lost workforce, and the USDA produced an annual report of foreign ownership that trickled through the federal government.^[9]

The USDA also kept a real-time log for AFIDA filings from investors from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. When the USDA received the complete file – later in the process and through the effort of manual scanning – it forwarded the information to the Department of Defense and Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[10]

Although the USDA had received legislative directives since 2023 “to update its paper-based submission process” and create a public database, with a deadline of 2025, that directive lacked sufficient funding, the GAO reported.^[11]

The GAO concluded that the “USDA does not regularly share AFIDA data with CFIUS agencies on a timely basis to be useful for CFIUS reviews,” which need “information more than once a year and … more up-to-date and more specific to help” in identifying risks.^[12]

The GAO recommended that the USDA report more promptly to CFIUS member agencies and improve employee instruction, monitoring of data, and discovering non-filers. Most importantly, the USDA needs to get its submissions and public database online.^[13]

CFIUS Review

CFIUS is a multi-agency committee, including secretaries of the Treasury, Homeland Security, and Defense departments, empowered to review foreign transactions that pose national security threats.^[14]

Such transactions include real estate purchases or leases to foreign persons within 100 miles of a listed military installation, among locations that could harm national security.^[15]

Last November, CFIUS promulgated regulations to expand the definition of military installations of concern.^[16]

A CFIUS review, whether self-disclosed or referred by another agency, begins with a national security review. If the review reveals potential risks, a national security investigation proceeds.^[17]

If the investigation reveals risks that cannot be mitigated, CFIUS may refer the transaction for review by the president, who may suspend or prohibit the transaction if it “threatens to impair” national security.^[18]

Oversight takes time. The statute permits 45 days for a review, another 45 days for an investigation, and 15 days for a presidential review.^[19] The time limit doesn’t apply “during a lapse in appropriations.”^[20]

Action: Federal and State

The GAO recommendations appear as action items in the current Farm Security Action Plan, focusing on online AFIDA reporting, an online portal to allow to farmers, ranchers, and members of the general public report potential AFIDA violations, and closer coordination with CFIUS.

In addition, a Memorandum of Understanding with the Treasury Department includes the USDA secretary in CFIUS for review of transactions involving agricultural land, biotechnology, and the agricultural industry, as required by Section 787 of the Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2024 (Pub. L. No. 118-42).

Encouraging protective legislation, federal and state, forms another action item.

Perhaps the most successful bill of many in Congress, H.R.1713 passed the U.S. House June 23 and was introduced in the Senate as S.2268. But proposals are common. Historically, the proposals vary, draw limited support, and die.^[21]

States have moved faster. About “half of the states prohibit or restrict ownership of agricultural land by foreign persons by state statute.”^[22]

In 2023, 15 states enacted restrictions on foreign ownership while between nine and 21 other states saw proposals fail.^[23] By spring 2024, five more states had changed their laws.^[24] Texas enacted a law last June.^[25]

State laws fit common categories. A state may regulate purchases by any foreign buyer or define the limitations by nation based on a national security designation as a “foreign adversary.”^[26]

Another analysis adds categories of “the type of land restricted,” whether agricultural, forest, or near military installations and “the types of investment-related activities restricted,” such as restrictions that may extend to leases and “indirect investments.”^[27]

Wisconsin’s Unfamiliar Law

When Wisconsin enacted its limitation on foreign ownership of farmland in 1887, its fears were nearby – “undesirable results from nonresident alien ownership of large tracts of land in other states.”^[28]

The undesirable elements could be corporations, or merely the reputation of a foreign-born landholder of hundreds of thousands of acres.^[29]

Wisconsin’s current law at Wis. Stat. section 710.02 limits nonresident alien landowners, including corporations more than 20 percent foreign owned, to a maximum of 640 acres – a section of agricultural land – punishable by forced divestiture within four years.

The owner must report to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) various information with a copy of its AFIDA filing.

It’s an unfamiliar law that “probably affects more people or corporations than they actually realize that it does,” said Amanda Kerr, who practices commercial real estate at Husch Blackwell in Milwaukee.

Not only is the law esoteric, but with only one case construing it and few penalties charged, transactional lawyers have little available to analyze to help a client, Kerr said.

Legislative proposals in 2025 Assembly Bill 218 and 2025 Senate Bill 219 would tighten limits to 50 acres with a three-year divestiture deadline.

In addition, the law would prohibit ownership by a “foreign adversary,” as defined in 15 C.F.R. section 791.4, within ten miles of a military installation with an 18-month divestiture deadline.

A separate pair of proposals, 2025 Assembly Bill 30 and 2025 Senate Bill 7, would change the law to prohibit a “foreign adversary,” as defined by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, from owning land.

While these proposals place Wisconsin in the legal zeitgeist, not everyone is happy. Some local businesses “were concerned about these changes” that could draw them within the law’s scope, Kerr explained.

Better Solution?

The risk of the “back 40” becoming a field for spying, or perhaps jamming and firing lasers against drones, seems like a valid risk.

While this land of plenty rarely has faced famine, a foreign chokehold on food – another concern of the Farm Security Action Plan – resonates.

Senior Staff Editor Will Miller of the Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agricultural, and Natural Resources Law, argues for a better solution.

The concerns raised by foreign land ownership – national security and economic security – “the federal government generally holds authority” through constitutional powers delegated to Congress on immigration laws that regulate nonresident aliens and limits on states conducting foreign affairs.^[30]

Miller proposed a law that establishes a federal minimum, like the Clean Air Act does for air pollution, to precisely designate the countries of concern and “a hard cap on the amount of land in a state that may be owned by foreign persons,” avoiding protected classes of race, national origin, or citizenship.^[31]

States could then legislate however they wanted within established federal minimums.^[32]

Endnotes

[1] Sarah Everhart, The Dark Side of the Balloon: Restrictions on Foreign Investment in U.S. Farmland, 20 J. Food L. & Pol’y 139, 151 (2024); Jack E. Harper, Non-ALAA Symposium Pieces: This Can Be Your Land, But This Land Is My Land: How the United States Federal Government Plans to Address Foreign Entity Ownership of American Agricultural Land, 29 Drake J. Agric. L. 361, 371 (2024); Will Miller, This Land Is Our Land: Addressing Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land in the United States, 17 Ky. J. Equine, Agric. & Nat. Resources L. 83, 94 (2024-25) (including this and other examples).

[2] Everhart, supra note 1, at 151.

[3] Id.; Harper, supra note 1, at 371.

[4] U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), Foreign Investments in U.S. Agricultural Land 12 (GAO-24-106337, Jan. 2024); Everhart, supra note 1, at 142, 159-63 (noting average age of farmer is 58.1 and that 40% of farms will change hands by 2035, necessitating government support of financing to help establish new American farms).

[5] 7 U.S.C. section 3501(a).

[6] 7 C.F.R. section 781.3.

[7] 7 U.S.C. section 3502; 7 C.F.R. sections 781.4-.5.

[8] GAO, supra note 4, at 1 & 1 n.2.

[9] Id. at 2, 24.

[10] Id. at 20, 21.

[11] Id. at 27, 35.

[12] Id. at 19.

[13] Id. at 36.

[14] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(b), (k)(1)-(2).

[15] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(a)(4)(B)(ii), (C)(ii); 31 C.F.R. section 802.203 (defining “close proximity” as one mile); 31 C.F.R. section 802.211 (defining “covered real estate”); 31 C.F.R. section 802.217 (defining “extended range” to 99 miles beyond close proximity); 31 C.F.R. Part 802, Appendix A (listing installations).

[16] Definition of Military Installation and the List of Military Installations in Regulations Pertaining to Certain Transactions by Foreign Persons Involving Real Estate in the United States, 89 Fed. Reg. 88128 (Nov. 7, 2024) (final rule); 89 Fed. Reg. 58,653 (July 19, 2024) (proposed rule) (codified at 31 C.F.R. Part 802, Appendix A).

[17] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(b); see also GAO, supra note 4, at 9, figure 2 (diagramming the process).

[18] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(d), (l); see also GAO, supra note 4, at 9, figure 2 (diagramming the process).

[19] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(b)(1)(F) (reviews), (b)(2)(C) (investigations), (d)(2) (presidential review); see also GAO, supra note 4, at 9, figure 2 (diagramming the process).

[20] 50 U.S.C. section 4565(b)(8).

[21] Miller, supra note 1, at 104-07.

[22] Id. at 93.

[23] Id.; see also Everhart, supra note 1, at 140.

[24] Everhart, supra note 1, at 140.

[25] Wang v. Paxton, Civil Action No. 4:25-cv-03103 (S.D. Tex., Aug. 18, 2025), available at 2025 WL 2402324, at *1 (denying challenge to law because of lack of standing).

[26] Miller, supra note 1, at 95-96.

[27] Everhart, supra note 1, at 155-56.

[28] Lehndorff Geneva, Inc. v. Warren, 74 Wis. 2d 369, 386 (1976); see also Wis. Atty. Gen. OAG-11-14, ¶ 3 (Dec. 19, 2014) (describing Lehndorff’s historical analysis).

[29] Lehndorff, 74 Wis. 2d at 386 & n.33 (raising concern of absentee landowners); Homer E. Socolofsky, William Scully: Ireland and America, 1840-1900, 48 Agric. Hist. 155, 155 & n.2 (Jan. 1974) (tracing newspaper reports of landowner holding 225,000 acres in four states to limitations on land owned by foreign owners in ten states, including Wisconsin).

[30] Miller, supra, note 1, at 102 (referencing U.S. Const. article I, section 8, clause 4 and U.S. Const. article 1, section 10, respectively).

[31] Id. at 107-10.

[32] Id. at 110-12.