MO lawmakers want to limit foreign-owned farms, as Schmitt’s past vote comes under fire
Missouri Democrats have for years unsuccessfully tried to claw back a 2013 law that allows foreign companies to own Missouri farmland.
The efforts have gained little traction over the years in the GOP-dominated General Assembly. But, after a series of recent campaign attacks against Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt highlighted his vote in favor of the law, there appears to be renewed bipartisan interest among state lawmakers to require more oversight on foreign ownership of state farmland.
Schmitt’s vote in favor of the law, which critics say poses national security and food insecurity risks, could present a potential obstacle for Schmitt, the Republican nominee in the race for U.S. Senate. Democratic nominee Trudy Busch Valentine has sought to capitalize on the farmland issue in recent weeks.
“Eric Schmitt was the deciding vote to bring this to this state,” said state Sen. Doug Beck, a St. Louis Democrat who has for four years tried to pass legislation that banned foreign companies from buying up Missouri farmland. “I think people are really tuning into that now.”
State Rep. Mike Haffner, a Pleasant Hill Republican and chair of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, said in a phone interview that he is in favor of more disclosure requirements for companies that own foreign-owned land. The issue has been at the forefront of his committee’s summer hearings, he said.
“This is the topic that we have been going through in detail. It’s also been discussed at the Republican caucus meetings,” he said. “There is an incredible amount of interest out there.”
Much of the discussion surrounding foreign ownership of farmland has centered around China — a country that has regularly been used in national political rhetoric as an increased percentage of Americans view the nation as an economic and political threat.
Just weeks after the 2013 legislation was approved, the Chinese-based Shuanghui International Holdings bought U.S.-based Smithfield Foods and scooped up roughly 40,000 acres in Missouri. Busch Valentine, in a recent campaign ad, attacked Schmitt for supporting the law.
“If Eric Schmitt wanted to sell farmland to communists in China, he should have become a broker in Beijing,” the ad said. U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler and former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens had also attacked Schmitt over the issue during the GOP primary.
The most recent poll in the Senate race, conducted Sept. 14-18 by SurveyUSA, placed Schmitt’s support at 47% and Busch Valentine at 36% ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
Rich Chrismer, Schmitt’s campaign spokesperson, in a statement to The Star tried to paint Busch Valentine as soft on China, but did not directly address criticism of Schmitt’s vote.
“Eric Schmitt is the only candidate who has stood up to China and was the first Attorney General to sue China to hold them accountable for causing the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said. “The Heiress Valentine supports the Green New Deal that will ship thousands of American jobs to China and create more borrowing and reckless spending ensuring we are more in debt to China. The Heiress Valentine’s policies would simply embolden America’s enemies like China.”
Smithfield Foods, now called the WH Group, owns over 146,000 acres of Missouri farmland, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank. In Missouri, foreign-held agricultural land grew by nearly 50,000 acres between 2019 and 2020, according to MOST Policy Initiative, a Jefferson City-based group that conducts bipartisan research on Missouri legislation.
However, the most recent data from the USDA shows that China was not among the top five nations that own the most U.S. farmland as of December 2020.
State Rep. Tracy McCreery, a St. Louis Democrat who is in favor of legislation that would require more accounting of foreign ownership, said in a phone interview with The Star that she felt Schmitt hasn’t adequately explained why he voted for the 2013 legislation.
“He’s not been really available to the public much,” she said. “He voted for it. I have not seen any explanation for it. I’d be interested in what his justification was.”
Jean Evans, a former executive director of the Missouri GOP, said in a phone interview with The Star that she didn’t believe Schmitt’s 2013 vote would hurt his campaign.
“I don’t think her campaign has much to run on and so they’ve latched on to that,” she said, referring to Busch Valentine. “To act like Schmitt somehow sold a bunch of Missouri farmland to China — it’s such a ridiculous exaggeration that it’s not noteworthy.”
Political observers say the criticism of Schmitt’s 2013 vote is reminiscent of the 2016 Republican primary for attorney general where a PAC supporting Josh Hawley, now a U.S. senator, attacked opponent Kurt Schaefer for the same vote. Hawley soundly defeated Schaefer in the primary and went on to win the general election.
“I remember being shocked that after that issue was brought up and used against Kurt Schaefer successfully, that the legislature didn’t come back and try to fix that or, you know, just deal with it,” McCreery said. “It’s pretty much brought up every election period.”
Some Democrats hope that the national scrutiny placed on the 2013 law could increase state lawmakers’ interest in the issue and create a small opening to amend it. Beck said he plans to file legislation next session that would prohibit the future sale of farmland to foreign entities.
“Our farmland is a finite resource that we have,” Beck said. “When you take a company that comes from a country that’s hostile to us and they own a lot of our farmland, and they control like 50% of our hog production in Missouri, to me that makes that become a national security issue and also a food security issue.”
The goal of the bill would be to stop foreign purchases so the state could get an accurate count of how much land is actually owned by foreign companies, he said. The 2013 law allows no more than 1% of state land to be owned by a foreign firm.
But, in 2015, lawmakers approved a provision that removed the requirement that foreign companies must apply with the Missouri Department of Agriculture before purchasing Missouri land. This allowed foreign entities to apply through shell companies and potentially bypass state regulation.
According to the most recent data from the USDA as of December 2020, Missouri has already passed its 1% threshold with 1.1% of state farmland owned by foreign companies. However, some caution that the figure is an estimate and could be even higher.
“There is no accounting, period,” Beck said. “So we don’t have any idea — anything you see as a number is a guess.”
Bipartisan concern over foreign ownership of state farmland became an issue during the legislature’s special session last week when some legislators criticized an agricultural tax credits bill for benefitting foreign companies.
State Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican, unsuccessfully tried to amend the legislation to bar foreign-owned companies from getting the credits.
“We want to protect Missouri farmland, our families who come after us want to make sure that it stays in the hands of Missourians,” Moon said on the Senate floor. “Is there anything that we can do to disincentivize them coming in and taking up usable, tillable land and protect Missourians who might come after us?”
Lawmakers from both parties indicated support for some form of restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland, but it was removed from the tax credit legislation because it fell outside of the special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Parson.
State Rep. Ian Mackey, a St. Louis Democrat who is a member of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, said lawmakers have weighed either an outright ban or some way to restrict foreign ownership of farmland.
“I think it now does have a bipartisan push, a bipartisan renewal,” he said.
