Several Mississippi officials, led by Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson and Attorney General Lynn Fitch, have produced a report that notes the rising amount of farmland in the state owned by foreigners.
A number of states have been reviewing this, probably because communist China has been increasing its American landholdings over the past decade. The Mississippi Today website recently reported that 3.1% of American farmland is under the control of foreign owners.
It’s a small percentage, true, but it’s rising, and states are wise to keep an eye on this trend.
In Mississippi, 2.6% of farmland is foreign-owned, a little bit less than the national figure. Mississippi Today said foreign non-residents owned more than 700,000 acres in the state in 2021. That was up by 100,000 acres in 10 years.
The most interesting nugget in the story is the likelihood that much of the foreign ownership may violate state law, which places significant restrictions on the practice.
The law allows foreign non-residents to own up to 320 acres for industrial development or five acres for a home. It allows ownership if the buyer is from Lebanon or Syria, which apparently dates back to residents from those countries emigrating to the state in the late 19th century. Finally, a foreigner can inherit land or take a lien on land to secure a debt.
The Lebanon-Syria exemption stands out as something that needs to be updated. People concerned about Chinese land purchases also might worry about residents from those two countries, whose governments are not close allies of the United States.
The first step is to determine what to do about any foreign landowners who are violating current law. Fitch, the attorney general, said ownership of land bought illegally is supposed to revert to the state.
After resolving any such cases, the state then should look at changing its laws to reflect today’s globally connected commerce.
It is wise public policy to limit the rights of owners from countries with an adversarial relationship to America. China and Russia are the two most obvious examples. But after that, it’s difficult to see the wisdom of banning almost all owners who are from other countries.
The report said the Netherlands by far owns the most Mississippi land of any foreign country, a total of 350,000 acres. Owners from Great Britain and Germany each have about 60,000 acres. (China’s holdings in the state amount to a paltry 88 acres.)
It’s most likely that the people or companies from the Netherlands who own rural property here are trying to make money from it — same as Americans who own farmland. There’s far less agricultural land available in Europe, so it makes sense for investors there to look someplace that has more of it. Mississippi is one of those places.
There are industrial issues to consider as well. Here’s one example: Drax, a British company, produces wood pellets in Amite County and ships them to England for electricity generation.
Mississippi welcomed this company to the state, and for many years has made it a point to solicit foreign industrial investment here. Given that, there is no logical reason to change the business relationship with Drax if the company one day wants to buy 1,000 acres of timberland to secure a supply of pellets.
The state should set reasonable limits on foreign land purchases. But forbidding it sounds too much like the 1960s civil rights complaints about “outside agitators.” Owners who take care of their property should be welcomed.
