China-owned farmland looms over Oklahoma governor’s race

Foreign ownership of farmland, which was once a niche concern in agricultural policy circles, has become a prominent political issue in Oklahoma. In this year’s Republican primary for governor, candidates are seizing on the issue.

“Traveling across the state, this is one of the top concerns from the people,” said Jake Merrick, a former state senator and gubernatorial candidate, speaking at a Feb. 28 Republican forum in Oklahoma City. “I would say education is probably number one. Probably number two is dealing with the foreign ownership of land.”

Much of the rhetoric, in Oklahoma and other states, has focused on a single country: China.

Last year, the Trump administration released a National Farm Security Action Plan that pointed to Chinese-owned farmland as a threat to the nation’s food supply. And between 2011 and 2024, lawmakers across 40 states introduced 280 bills aimed at restricting Chinese land ownership, according to a Princeton University study.

In Oklahoma, concerns over Chinese-owned farmland have been amplified by reports of Chinese crime groups operating illegal marijuana farms in the state.

Oklahoma’s general election for governor is in November, but the June 16 Republican primary — and potential August runoff — will produce the heavy favorite in the deeply conservative state. While many of the nine candidates have tried to stake out the toughest positions on foreign-owned land, none have openly embraced measures as aggressive as those adopted in states like Arkansas and Utah, where officials have forced Chinese corporations to divest landholdings. And when it comes to farmland tied to Chinese crime groups, key details remain unclear.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who also is running for governor and was leading in a February poll, has pointed to his record against illegal marijuana farms. However, he has offered conflicting accounts.

“We had over 100,000 acres owned by Chinese syndicated crime organizations. I stood up and organized a crime force,” Drummond said at the February Republican forum. “We have 57 civil asset forfeitures pending against real estate owned by Chinese syndicated crime organizations. We’ve taken back thousands of acres. We will take back the remaining.”

In a March interview with Investigate Midwest, Drummond said the 100,000-acre figure was an estimate provided by the FBI when he took office, and that the 57 pending cases account for a portion of that land.

Once the land is seized, it is sold through third-party auctioneers, with proceeds ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent going to local governments, Drummond added.

“It typically goes to the county commissioners, the county sheriff, the municipality that was involved,” Drummond said. “These [auctions] are happening every week.”

But when Investigate Midwest requested records related to those auctions, his office said the cases were still ongoing and that no auctions had taken place.

“These particular tracts of land have not yet been auctioned, so there are no county proceeds records available at this time,” wrote Shauna Peters, communications director for the office of the attorney general, in an email.

Tough talk on China contrasts with carve-out, campaign messaging

Politicians across the state, not just Drummond, have made misleading claims or adopted forceful rhetoric on foreign-owned farmland that doesn’t always align with their legislative actions.

In 2022, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican nearing the end of his second and final term, warned that “communists” were buying up land in Oklahoma after the state saw a sharp increase in foreign-held farmland. In reality, most of that land was tied to renewable energy companies from Europe and Canada, firms he had actively incentivized to invest in the state.

A year later, Oklahoma lawmakers passed legislation specifically targeting farmland ownership by “hostile” countries such as China. But they later added a provision that exempted pork producer Smithfield Foods, the only Chinese-owned company with farmland in the state.

While China is often the focus, its ownership of U.S. farmland is minuscule.

“Despite the recent upsurge in concern, China remains a bit player in the ownership of U.S. farmland,” said the Cato Institute in 2023, a libertarian-leaning think tank.

Of the 46.3 million acres nationwide owned or leased by foreign entities, Chinese individuals or companies hold less than 248,000 acres — about 0.6 percent of the total — according to U.S. Department of Agriculture records. Despite the small amount, lawmakers have pointed to China’s growing control over U.S. farmland, which was just 13,720 acres in 2010.

About one-fourth of Chinese-owned farmland in the U.S. is controlled by Smithfield Foods, which is owned by China’s WH Group.

In Oklahoma, as candidates and lawmakers increasingly frame Chinese land ownership as a security threat, none have directly addressed Smithfield in their campaigns, even when the company has been singled out by the Trump administration, and other states take more forceful actions against Chinese companies.

In 2023, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin ordered the agrochemical firm Syngenta, owned by the Chinese conglomerate ChemChina, to divest its land and fined the company $280,000. In Utah, a Chinese-owned company with 500 acres near a military depot was forced to sell its land this past February due to legislation passed in recent years. Gov. Spencer Cox described the company as a shell entity for the Chinese Communist Party.

When Investigate Midwest asked Drummond about Smithfield Foods, he pointed to federal oversight.

“There are exceptions, and when those exceptions have been granted by the federal government, I am not going to second guess the vetting of the federal government,” he said, referring to the clearance Smithfield Foods received in 2013 from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) after its acquisition by WH Group.

Merrick struck a different tone.

“Any connection with China is definitely a concern, so yes, Smithfield would need to be looked at,” he wrote in an email. “I hate carve-outs, especially for multi-million dollar, Chinese owned companies. So, Smithfield will be in my sights.”

But he also acknowledged that current Oklahoma law effectively shields the company from divestment, suggesting that an order like the one issued in Arkansas against Syngenta would not be feasible.

Charles McCall, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives who is also running for governor and was polling second in a February survey, released a campaign video claiming he “started the fight against foreign adversaries by authoring some of the harshest laws in the country.” But one of the bills McCall authored, SB 1705, shielded Smithfield Foods from divestment.

McCall did not reply to several interview requests.

Oklahoma’s glaring loophole in foreign land ban

At the state Capitol, Rep. Jim Shaw, a Chandler Republican, introduced a bill this session that would have imposed additional penalties on foreign entities found to own land illegally. The bill, however, failed in committee last month after a heated exchange between Shaw and Rep. Chris Kannady, who accused him of wanting to “water down” existing law.

“You have to take a stance and not screw up a good law that was put in place by someone who knew what they were doing,” said Kannady, an Oklahoma City Republican who is also running for attorney general. “And was not doing it for political pandering, was not doing it to post it on Facebook.”

“If the law today worked, those hostile foreign actors wouldn’t still be acquiring new land,” Shaw replied.

Under current Oklahoma statute, foreign individuals of any nationality and entities tied to a foreign adversary country are barred from purchasing land in the state. But there are exceptions.

Companies with an agreement with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) — such as Smithfield Food and Syngenta, both Chinese-owned — and individuals who are residents or “bona fide residents,” are allowed to buy land.

According to guidance from the Oklahoma Real Estate Commission, there is no definition for “bona fide resident”. “A bona fide resident is equated with a person’s honest, good-faith intent to make a place one’s residence or domicile,” the agency states.

Candidates like Merrick and former senator Mike Mazzei have criticized that language as a loophole that needs to be closed. Drummond, however, said the provision is narrower in practice.

“The intent of that law is that you have an application with the federal government to become a naturalized citizen,” he said.

It is unclear whether Drummond meant “resident” rather than “citizen,” as Oklahoma law does not require U.S. citizenship to purchase land as long as the individual resides in the state or demonstrates a good-faith intent to do so.

“I believe he was probably referring to his interpretation of state law, not that individual statute,” said the attorney general’s communications director when asked for clarification.

But both the Oklahoma Constitution and state statutes explicitly recognize that “bona fide” residents — not citizens — may acquire land in the state.

Self-reported system leaves gaps in foreign land tracking

Oklahoma ranked behind only Texas and New Mexico for the increase in foreign-held agricultural acreage in 2024, according to the most recent USDA data. That year, foreign individuals and companies acquired about 198,000 acres in the state.

In total, foreign-held land in Oklahoma amounts to 2,023,272 acres, or roughly 4.8 percent of all privately held land. Most of it is tied to renewable energy companies from Canada and Europe, which typically lease land for 30 years or more. (Under USDA definitions, land leased for 10 years or longer is considered “foreign-held.”)

The only Chinese company that holds agricultural land in Oklahoma continues to be Smithfield Foods, which operates pork farms spanning 2,575 acres across Harper, Beaver and Ellis counties.

The data comes from self-reported filings submitted by foreign investors under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, known as AFIDA. Because it is self-reported, critics have questioned its reliability.

Still, the USDA has taken enforcement action in some cases. In 2022, it fined Syngenta $46,976.85 for missing AFIDA filings. In 2023, Smithfield Foods was fined $4,903.78. Both companies ultimately submitted the filings and paid the fines.

The USDA has also taken steps to improve how foreign landholdings are tracked, rolling out a more streamlined reporting process this year aimed at simplifying filings and improving data accuracy.

Even as federal officials work to refine the system, the issue continues to play out most visibly in state politics. In Oklahoma, a state with a long farming tradition and a $28 billion agricultural industry, politicians have framed foreign-owned farmland as an existential threat to the state’s future and identity.

“Securing a future for our children is securing land for them. That is the legacy. That is the future of Oklahoma,” said Merrick at a March 30 Republican gubernatorial debate.

“Our children and our land. Both are under attack, both must be defended.”

Juan Vassallo covers agribusiness and the meat industry in Oklahoma for Investigate Midwest. This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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