WASHINGTON, DC – Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman on Wednesday attended a U.S. Senate hearing in the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry to discuss foreign ownership in American agriculture and push for more restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland and other resources.
“Let me say, I hope many of our colleagues agree that the Chinese government and other U.S. adversaries should own zero agricultural land in our country,” said Sen. Fetterman in the hearing. “I mean, they are taking back our pandas. We should take back all of their farmland. This is really a national security issue, and it is a food security issue.”
“Like my colleagues, I’m concerned with foreign countries’ and foreign corporations’ ownership in our agriculture supply chain,” Sen. Fetterman continued. “On small farmers in PA, there are over 56,000 of them here in Pennsylvania that face enough hardships, and they don’t need to compete with foreign governments buying our land.”
The full clip of Sen. Fetterman at the hearing can be found here.
This hearing is not the first time Sen. Fetterman has taken action to protect American farmland from ownership by our foreign adversaries. In the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Fetterman strongly supported an amendment thatbans China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran from purchasing U.S. farmland and agricultural companies. It also requires the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review foreign investments and transactions in American agriculture to evaluate whether such investments would compromise national security.
The witnesses at today’s hearing included Mrs. Gloria Montaño Greene, Deputy Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Mr. Harrison Pittman, Director, National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture; and Dr. David L. Ortega, Associate Professor, Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University.