In this installment of what I am looking for in policies and candidates to earn my vote at the state level, it makes sense to talk about a little-known trend that is gathering momentum all over the country, and even here in Colorado: The purchase of large chunks of our agriculture industry by foreign interests.
Did you know that this is happening? Entire sectors of our food production industries are being slowly and, dare I say, systematically, purchased by foreign companies right now. That’s everything from planted foods to dairy to meats, farms to feed lots to processing plants. To highlight how this is creeping along, let’s just focus on the purchases of farmland today:
Did you know that foreign interests own (as of 2019) 35.2 million acres of US agricultural land? That number is increasing every year – by a lot. By 2.3 million acres per year since 2015, actually. While it’s only a net of 2.7% of our agricultural land in 2019, that number grows, never shrinks, every year. And while the Chinese have rapidly increased their purchasing of our lands, they are very much a minority shareholder among the global investors. Canada and 4 Euro countries own 62% of that total as of, again, 2019.
Here’s part of the rub, in my opinion: 14 states (mostly Midwest) have restrictive or prohibitive laws on the books about foreign ownership. It still happens, but it is monitored and controlled. Colorado is one of 29 states that have NO restrictions on foreign ownership. In fact, Colorado is one of a few states that are “off the charts” in the USDA reports (the top tier states in the report include Colorado and are greater than 500K acres already owned by foreign entities). Put into perspective, about 1% of Colorado land is currently owned by foreign interests and growing.
Congress at the national level has tried several times to address this with legislation. They’ve really only succeeded in amending the Defense Production Act to include the Secretary of Agriculture on CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States). My thoughts on that: Unimpressed.
What do I want to see for a Colorado policy? Simple:
- Introduce legislation that heavily restrict or prohibits purchases of anything in our Agricultural (and while we’re at it, Energy and Transportation) sector(s) by entities that are foreign entities, or wholly- or majority-owned or controlled by foreign entities.
- Introduce legislation that heavily restricts currently owned sector assets in Colorado to ensure our local and national markets have exclusive first rights to all output produced, at most-favored market pricing.
- Ensure that all profits are subject not only to local, state, and federal taxes, but also impose surcharges over and above those taxes for any profits leaving the US. Yes … I am trying to discourage foreign ownership.
- Introduce a plan that lets the state have first right of refusal to purchase, at fair market value, any of these land and business assets. In the case of farmland, for instance, we develop a lease-back program that allows Colorado farmers to work that land for a modest land-lease arrangement, allowing them to get on path to re-purchase and also run a profitable business.
Obviously, there are a lot of nuances to something like this, but the theme should be obvious: Keep Colorado assets owned in Colorado. Keep our output for the benefit of Coloradoans, followed by the nation, and then our friends and allies. Keep our industries employing our residents and migrant seasonal workers and keep the revenues for the benefit of our state.
Thoughts to ponder…
