Vilsack: Farmland Data Not Just A Funding Issue

A bipartisan group of Senators recently launched an effort to get USDA to improve the accuracy of foreign-owned farmland data.  The group, led by Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst and John Fetterman wrote Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack that FSA data on foreign holdings of U.S. farmland may be inaccurate.  That’s due to manual data entry begun after a 1978 disclosure law.

But Vilsack told lawmakers back in March that Congress didn’t fund a switch OKed this year to internet data entry; and even if it did.

“No matter how much money you give us, it will always be imperfect for this reason: there are over three thousand county recorder offices around the country," Vilsack said.  "Every county has a recorder’s office. It would require us to have a centralized database where every real estate transaction would be put into a database to look at.”  

But Vilsack pointed out USDA was moving ahead this year to take part in the Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, as approved in FY 2024 funding legislation.

“I made a request of the Treasury Department for us to be more engaged in issues involving agribusiness, agriculture, farmland, and we have. We’ve been engaged and involved in several projects. We appreciate the fact that this 2024 budget provided resources, for the first time, directly assisting us to expand staffing for that purpose.” 

The new letter pressing for greater data recording accuracy was cosigned by 11 senators from both parties, including Ag Chair and Democrat Debbie Stabenow.  It follows new controversies over China farmland buys in Michigan and North Dakota near sensitive military installations.

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