Old Yang wants a farm, E I E I Oh
answering a reader's questions
My oldest friend from college and his truly marvelous wife are people we keep in contact with frequently. The four of us have had more than a dozen truly impeccable meals (I define impeccable not only as delicious but with vegan options) at the Blue Bird restaurant in KCMO over the years. We know all three of their kids quite well and met the delight of their eyes, the first grandchild, when in town for a speaking engagement at the University of Missouri Kansas City in February.
Angie sent me a request last night that I will address today: how much Missouri farmland does China own and how do they go about purchasing it? Seems this topic is front and center in the Missouri Republican primary next Tuesday. From her description, the adverts mentioning this phenomenon are back-to-back attacks on Kansas City networks.
In light of the state of Missouri politics these days, it must make for a long evening watching television as I would be surprised by much distinction between the Republicans in the field. But, I can answer what we know about China, land ownership, and why it’s coming up these days. Please recall, in advance, I am explaining rather than endorsing any aspect of this topic.
The CCP’s primary concern is retaining its power atop the Middle Kingdom. Public statements to the contrary, they are well aware that the natives are not entirely happy but the average Yang and Wang are happier when their basic needs are met. Xi Jinping has regularly discussed food security as a priority for his government, unsurprising since I can’t conjure up any leader anywhere who ignorantly espouses hunger as a policy. Sure, there are pathetic regimes using it as a weapon but that generally isn’t trumpeted as policy nor is it China’s current problem.
Xi has committed his government to enhancing Chinese autonomy in so many fields—energy, manufacturing technologies, AI, cyber, and food, to name a few—to ensure the country operates without interference should an international crisis occur. That does not mean he intends to provoke a crisis but it’s hardly surprising he would seek to minimize factors possibly limiting his actions in the future. Sadly, as several papers this week noted, anxieties run high regarding the risks of a conflict in the South China Sea.
This serves multiple purposes. It assures China’s autonomy and—by extension—conjures up protecting the nation’s sovereignty, a theme the CCP elevated to a crusade for the past three quarters of a century. Second, it addresses a problem that the Four Modernizations created when workers departed inefficient, subsistence farming for the manufacturing jobs in coastal cities, powering the country’s transformation. Truth is that if you took people many off the rural farms to assure urbanization, you had to figure how to feed everyone. No, the population is no longer growing rapidly but more than a billion folks still inhabit this country, often with a more cosmopolitan palate than what China traditionally grew or bred in 1976 when Mao died. Third, this reminder of self-sufficiency reinforces Xi’s obsession with returning the CCP and its involvement in the life of citizens. What is more vital to any individual than the food she consumes, particularly when the Party has so carefully worked to assure access (so they tell her repeatedly)? Fourth, China’s autonomy signals nasty westerners that China will not be cowered by attempts to “intimidate” Beijing through whatever means. While China would not hesitate to use the food cudgel if they believed it necessary to achieve a foreign policy goal, it’s not our preferred instrument of statecraft but we did use it against those barbarian Soviets in 1980.
I have argued for several years that China’s interests in Latin America, for example, grew out of the region’s improved agricultural productivity as much as acquiring extractive resources to fuel the military or industrial sectors. China fears we would limit access to food soybeans, for example, as the Carter administration embargoed wheat attempted to change Soviet behavior following their invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. Brazil produces more soybeans than anyone else, followed by the United States, Argentina, China, India, Canada, Russia, Paraguay, Bolivia and Ukraine. Rest assured China is interested in relations with all of those places, including us, to assure soybeans are not single-sourced. Whatever their misbehaviors, the CCP studies what others do.
The primary animal product China has long consumed is pork but beef and chicken are now in demand, which let’s see where Missouri comes into play. Missouri has both bountiful land and raises various animals for food.
Missouri, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, has 27 million acres (Governor Mike Parson says 27.5 million) in “Farm Operations” on 87, 600 operations (the site does not use the term ‘farms’). The overwhelming majority of the livestock on those acres are in chickens, a delicacy of increasing renown in the Middle Kingdom where Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets are favored restaurants. According to 2023 statistics, almost 304 million chickens grew on Missouri farms in that calendar year versus 1.8 million beef cattle, 3.95 million calves, 17 million turkeys, and 3.1 million hogs. There is a Chinese plate for each and every one of those creatures, though I have never seen turkey on a menu in China (but, we know I don’t read that part of the menu, either).
In terms of crops, soybeans grow on about 25% of the farmland in the state at 5.6 million acres with corn o 3.85 million acres. Hay, cotton, wheat, rice, and oats follow in importance, none of which is grown on more than 780,000 acres. Put another way, soybeans account for $3.36 billion in value versus $2.7 for corn used as grain (uninteresting to the CCP, I imagine). It’s the soybeans vital for dofu luring Chinese companies.
According to this request last night, the crux of the concerns in the Missouri race result from fear that China acquiring land in the Show Me State to undermine U.S. national security. These are certainly appropriate questions for anyone to ask about a competitor, if not adversary. But where is the danger zone?
Restrictions on foreigners owning land in the United States are not new but ebb and flow with the political tide. In the 1970s, Missouri was one of several states passing laws to restrict farmland sales to non-Americans, because Japan was thought accruing far too much land in this country. New York City, Honolulu, and other high value locations had the same pressures, much of now seeming overblown as Japan’s prospects for global domination diminished over the past thirty-five years as their economic miracle ended.
From what I gather, the 2013 Missouri legislature amended the foreign ownership provisions to allow up to 1% of the state’s agricultural holdings under non-U.S. citizens. Then Governor Jay Nixon vetoed of this law but a bipartisan majority (I did not know those existed in Missouri but it was more than a decade ago) overrode him.
This year, the Senate acted to restrict future “acqui[sition] by grant, purchase, devise, descent, or otherwise” to agricultural holdings within 500 miles of any military base in the state. Ah, a definite twist to the national security concerns.
But, Missouri is not a vast state, compared with Alaska, Texas, or California. The 500 mile prohibition de facto obviates future sales to any foreign companies because of geography. Whiteman Air Force Base, home of the B-2 stealth bomber, is 373 miles from Steele on the southeast border of the state, the furthest location I could find on a map. Missouri, under the last passed this spring, closed the door on any non-Americans owning agricultural land.
Foreign companies held 118,763 acres of the Show Me State as of the beginning of 2024. A January 2024 investigative report by a Kansas City television station found the state Department of Agriculture (MDA) records indicated China held 36% of the holdings foreigners had in 2022 on 42,596 acres—.154% of the agricultural land in the great state of Missouri. Specifically, a corporation called Murphy-Brown of Missouri held the highest acreage at 13,300 acres for what the application for the land permit called hog production in Sullivan County, southwest of St. Louis. (For those of you unfamiliar with Missouri geography, community of Sullivan is about 160 miles from the Whiteman Air Force Base.) According to the story, twenty-one other countries also hold agriculture areas in the state, with Canada, New Zealand and Spain following China as the biggest owners. Overall foreigners own 118,763 acres of Missouri, or .43%.
In January, Governor Parson issued an Executive Order restricting foreigners, with a caveat below, buying property within ten miles of a military facility. Aside from Whiteman, Ft. Leonard Wood Army camp, south southwest of Whiteman, is the only other active facility in the state. It isn’t clear to me whether his Executive Order also covered the Federal Cemetary in Springfield but his Order would circumvent future Chinese farm purchases near Knob Noster and Pulaski, respectively, where the two facilities operate.
Parson specifically excluded state partnerships with Sweden, Israel and Germany from the Executive Order he released on 2 January of this year regarding limiting future ownership within 10 miles of military facilities. Chinese citizens obviously would not qualify to purchase agricultral sites by the Governor’s rules but this proved insufficient for the legislature which crafted the 500 mile restriction.
The second aspect worth noting is that “investments from …allies total nearly $19 billion and employ thousands of Missourians”. What is not stated is the amount of revenue or jobs that the Chinese companies create or that prohibiting these actions in the future would sacrifice. In a state concerned about economic development, this strikes me as a notable omission.
Companies with links to China are hardly uncommon in the United States, though possible legal layers masking their ultimate ownership can obfuscate real ownership. I can’t cite a specific number but the overwhelming majority of successful businesses within the PRC are linked with the CCP through guanxi, or personal relationships. China is not a free market nation but one with intricate relationships, many of them linked back to the Party because that’s where the power is. China is a mercantilist system where the CCP demand of supporting the state apparatus looms important. How seriously is this state of play menacing national security on Missouri agricultural sites?
These companies buy U.S. land at times as that is how a laissez-faire, or let it be, system operates. For a nation keen to object to China’s state-led economy, we ought expect that to occur. Do those sales incur risk? They can but we are not talking about vast concentrations of Chinese enterprises in the state.
More fundamentally, however, is the reality that farming is expensive in the United States today and Chinese resources offer a lifeline to many farmers, even occasionally corporate ones, who decide selling their assets makes more financial sense than not. One of the Missouri legislators who opposed the 500 mile sales restrictions did so because she believed that the property owners ought have the right to sell to whomever they wanted, a pretty traditional American view of business but one that doesn’t seemingly apply to how the Missouri legislature views the PRC-linked enterprises today.
Is China also buying wonderful farmland in the heartland because they can or think it annoys us? You bet but that’s far from the only reason which is how too many explanations seem to go these days.
So, let’s get this straight: a major topic for voters selecting a Republican gubernatorial candidate is the danger of China holding agricultural land in Missouri?
Some companies already legally own agricultural land amounting to less than a tenth of a percent when allowed to hold up to a percent, unless my math is so deficient. Got it.
Everything within the state boundaries of Missouri is within 500 miles of either Whiteman Air Force Base or Ft. Leonard Wood. Ok. Future sales of farm land for any purpose to foreigners, except in joint agreements cited by the Governor’s office, are eliminated as a result. I see.
The law restricts future foreign holdings within 500 miles of military bases in Missouri but doesn’t address existing ownership. Got it.
Three gubernatorial candidates are all campaigning on this rather than offering solutions to soaring medical costs, education as the state is failing to hire teachers (they already defunded libraries, I think, so they no longer can campaign on that), and has the dubious distinction of drug overdoses being the leading cause of death for residents 18-44 years old. Don’t get it quite understand the priorities here but I don’t vote in this state.
China is now a convenient target for virtually all political campaigns on both sides of the aisle. China is reaping the effects of some of its prior actions—many of which are appalling and destructive—but it is becoming convenient to see China as more intimately involved in actions here than to face problems we alone can address in our states and within our nation.
If that is what interests Missouri voters, that is their privilege but we do seem to have many state concerns that don’t appear getting as many responses across the nation.
Rebuttals? Challenges? Reactions? Is anything like this occurring in your state or country? I welcome your thoughts. Please feel free to circulate this if you find it of value. Someone must have circulated yesterday’s piece on Venezuela as I received an invitation within 45 minutes to speak on Canadian TV this morning on that subject. Thank you.
I appreciate you taking time to read today’s column. Thanks especially to readers like Angie who are also subscribers as your financial support means a great deal.
We have had cloudy mornings this week so I leave you with the beauty of a local flower on our Eastport Walkabout each morning.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Department of Agriculture, “2023 State Agriculture Overview: Missouri”, usda.gov, 31 July 2024, retrieved at nass.usda.gov
“Drug Overdose Dashboard-fatal doses”, https://health.mo.gov, retrieved on 31 July 2024 at https://health.mo.gov/data/opioids/
Jodi Fortino, “Missouri’s teacher shortage isn’t getting any better. Will lawmakers act on a plan to fix it?“, kcur.org, 10 April 2024, retrieved at https://www.kcur.org/education/2024-04-10/missouris-teacher-shortage-isnt-getting-any-better-will-lawmakers-act-on-a-plan-to-fix-it
Sarah Kellogg, “Missouri Senate votes to bar foreign ownership of farmland in the state”, St. Louis Public Radio, 27 March 2024, retrieved at https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government
Lisa McCormick, “Companies with ties to China are largest foreign owners of agricultural land in Missouri, records show”, kshb.org, 2 January 2024, retrieved at https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/companies-with-ties-to-china-are-largest-foreign-owners-of-agricultural-land-in-missouri-records-show