The fear that individuals and businesses connected to China are imperiling America's food supply by quietly buying up farmland is completely unfounded for the state of Indiana, new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show.
According to the USDA, Indiana had just one China-connected agricultural parcel totaling 195 acres in Allen County, near Fort Wayne, at the end of 2023.
It was owned by Syngenta Seeds, a Switzerland-based producer and distributor of crop seeds and pesticides, that records show was purchased for $43 billion in 2017 by a Chinese state-owned enterprise now known as Sinochem.
Syngenta Seeds owned a total of 2,452 acres of U.S. farmland, including 220 acres in Illinois at the end of 2023, according to the USDA. The company was the sixth-largest Chinese investor in American agricultural property.
Its 195 acres in Indiana, including 135 acres of cropland, 20 acres of pasture, 11 acres of forest and 29 acres for other uses, constituted 0.00001% of the state's 18,054,212 privately-owned acres of agricultural property. Indiana as a whole comprises 22,954,880 acres of land, according to the USDA.
In 2024, the Republican-controlled General Assembly, in House Enrolled Act 1183, barred business entities and citizens of China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela from acquiring any new agricultural property in Indiana, or any real estate located within 10 miles of an Indiana military installation, with limited exceptions.
U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., currently is leading an effort to enact a similar policy nationwide, with the support of Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
"Food security is national security. Leaving America's basic needs vulnerable to extortion by foreign control is not an option," Banks said.
Only about 12% of the 90 million acres of corn grown annually in the U.S. is consumed as food products by humans. About 46% of America's corn is used as animal feed, while the remaining 42% is turned into ethanol to fuel motor vehicles, according to the USDA.
Altogether, USDA data show foreign entities owned a total of 416,406 acres of agricultural land in Indiana at the end of 2023, or 2.3% of the state's total farm ground. That's down from 438,876 acres at the end of 2022.
Portugal-based entities constituted about a quarter (116,798 acres) of the foreign holdings of Indiana land, mostly EDP Renewables agricultural properties used to generate wind energy, including 66,358 windmill-studded acres along Interstate 65 in White County.
Entities based in Germany (73,444 acres), Canada (69,980 acres), Italy (34,950 acres) and the Netherlands (25,932 acres) also were among the larger foreign holders of Indiana properties, according to the USDA.
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