Ricketts Introduces PLOT Act to Combat Communist China’s Ownership of American Farmland

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yesterday, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) introduced the Property Location Oversight and Transparency (PLOT) Act in the Senate. The bill strengthens U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) foreign land ownership reporting system by requiring the USDA to publish geospatial data on foreign agriculture land acquisitions and lowering the foreign ownership reporting thresholds.

"Farms and ranches are the foundation of the Good Life in Nebraska. But Communist China threatens this," said Senator Ricketts. "Communist China has pursued a policy of strategically buying American farmland, they have purchased land around military installations to weaken U.S. national security. My bill would combat this by strengthening USDA's foreign ag land reporting system. The hardworking Americans who feed us should benefit from our farms and ranches. Communist China should not."

The PLOT Act would amend the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure

Act (AFIDA) to:

• Require USDA to establish publicly accessible, open-source geospatial data of foreign ag land acquisitions;
• Require the Secretary of Agriculture, Director of National Intelligence, and the Secretary of Defense to use submitted geospatial data to identify potential national security concerns relating to foreign ownership of agricultural land, including:
  • proximity to military installations,
  • critical infrastructure,
  • and sensitive environmental areas;
• Apply lower thresholds for reporting foreign adversaries and prioritizing enforcement actions:
  • Decrease the reporting threshold of a single foreign person from 10 percent to 5 percent,
  • And decrease the reporting threshold for domestic entities substantially directed or controlled by a foreign person from 50 percent to 10 percent;
• And increase USDA enforcement to prioritize transactions conducted by foreign adversaries, particularly those involving Chinese entities.

BACKGROUND

Under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA), foreign entities are required to disclose the transactions of American agricultural land to the USDA. According to USDA, foreign investors own over 40 million acres of agricultural land across the United States. That includes Communist China's purchase of sensitive land surrounding Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Senator Ricketts previously introduced the AFIDA Improvements Act.

See the full bill text here.