Springfield representative and House Minority Leader Crystal Quade has been off to a busy start as the General Assembly kicks off its first full week in session.
On Monday, Jan. 9, she filed her 11th and latest piece of legislation, House Bill 707, which would effectively prohibit any “alien or foreign business” ownership of agricultural land in Missouri, if passed.
“Our caucus will prioritize this bill and others like it because we want to make laws that invest in Missourians, not overseas corporate interests more concerned with extracting profit from one of our state’s most valuable resources: its world-class farmland,” Quade said in a news release. “Passing this bill would support family farms and ensure that Missourians who have farmed for generations can continue to carry on that proud tradition.”
How we got here
In 2013, the Missouri legislature voted on Senate Bill 9 to allow up to 1 percent of agricultural land to be acquired by aliens or foreign businesses. SB 9 had enough support in the General Assembly to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto.
Around the same time, Hong Kong-based WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods for over $7 billion. The purchase of Smithfield by WH Group, which is one of the largest pork producers in the world, is one of the largest acquisitions of a U.S. company by a Chinese entity.
The change to foreign ownership of Smithfield is one of the most well-known examples of the impact state laws like SB 9 had on farmland across the country.
Upon acquiring Smithfield, WH Group owned approximately 42,000 acres in Missouri, and 146,000 across the U.S.
In the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Missouri to replace the retiring Roy Blunt, Democratic candidate Trudy Busch Valentine used Republican and victor Eric Schmitt’s “Yes” vote on SB 9 as a talking point in many of her political attack ads.
Covid, unclear picture of foreign ownership of farmland present concerns
As numerous factors in recent years, including the Covid-19 pandemic, have reshaped the food supply chain, Quade, her colleagues and other state legislatures are aiming to limit foreign ownership of U.S farmland.
“This has been a discussion even before the pandemic, but the pandemic has definitely brought this conversation to light in a lot of ways,” Quade said in an interview with the Daily Citizen.
Another issue that has come along with SB 9 is the mixed messaging from public and private agencies in terms of the number of acreage owned by foreign entities in Missouri.
The Missouri Department of Agriculture estimates only 0.16 percent of Missouri’s farmland was owned by foreign entities that operated under the 1 percent limit. The USDA estimated that figure to be 1.1 percent, higher than the statutory restriction. Investigate Midwest, a nonprofit based in Champaign, Il., found that over 3.1 million acres in Missouri, which amounts to about 11 percent of the state’s agricultural land, either had no owner listed or the current ownership has not been updated in the USDA’s database.
The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires foreign investors who acquire, transfer or hold agricultural land to report all holdings and transactions to the Secretary of Agriculture.
“That’s part of the problem,” Quade said. “I know that there have been changes at the federal level of how we track this and you know, what information has to be turned over, who's tracking it. There have been various changes over the years on how we acquire that information.
“One of the most concerning things to me is that we don't know exactly how much of our farmland is owned by foreign entities.”
Quade encouraged by bipartisan support
In addition to Quade, Sen. Bill Eigel (R-District 23) and Sen. Doug Beck (D-District 1) have also filed similar legislation that seeks to amend the current laws (Revised Statutes of Missouri Section 442.571) relating to foreign ownership of agricultural land in Missouri.
“It’s a bipartisan conversation,” Quade said. “This is something that not just Democrats are saying that needs to be looked at and fixed. We’re hearing it from both sides of the aisle and both folks who live in urban and rural Missouri as well.”
Quade is hopeful that, even if it isn’t her legislation, the state legislature would be able to find a way to get something done to reach the same outcome.
