Here in North America, the United States and Canada are both fortunate in having an abundance of rich farmlands. Drive through northern Indiana, through the dairy country of Wisconsin, the wheatfields of Kansas, or the vast grazing lands of the Great Plains, all the way north to Alberta, and you'll see the great agricultural country that could feed the entire world. These are the fruited plains and the amber waves of grain that Katharine Lee Bates was writing about in "America the Beautiful."
On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a new federal initiative to protect those lands—and keep the lands in the United States in American hands.
Secretary Rollins said in part:
American agriculture is not just about feeding our families but about protecting our nation and standing up to foreign adversaries who are buying our farmland, stealing our research, and creating dangerous vulnerabilities in the very systems that sustain us. Reshoring and near-shoring our food and agriculture supply chain is essential for our nation's security.
The National Farm Security Action Plan has at its heart the effort to secure American agriculture and American farmlands.
The Trump administration is launching an aggressive, multi-agency effort to protect America’s farmlands, food supply and critical research from the influence and control of China and other adversarial foreign nations — including banning the purchase of US farmland by Chinese nationals.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins joined several cabinet officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and trade adviser Peter Navarro — on Tuesday to announce the National Farm Security Action Plan.
The multi-agency effort, which will involve legislative and executive actions at the federal and state level, will strengthen US agricultural research and safeguard it from malign foreign influence, intellectual property theft, and the growing threat of agroterrorism, Rollins told reporters Monday.
There's an interesting point here, in that the Secretary and the Trump administration are viewing agriculture not only as a domestic issue, but as a national security issue. Much of the farmland Secretary Rollins speaks of, farmland that has been purchased by Chinese interests, is very near American military bases, and that is no coincidence.
China is the elephant in this room. Chinese operatives have been caught trying to smuggle deadly, crop-destroying fungus into the United States. Had this fungus been released, this would have constituted an act of biological warfare against the United States' agricultural supply chain. This isn't the only place where China is flexing its muscles, but it could have a drastic effect on the United States.
See Also: China Is Flexing Its Muscle in the Caribbean, and That's a Problem for the United States
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Much of this action will have to be taken by the states. Several states already restrict, to one degree or another, the purchase of farmlands by foreign buyers. What's interesting about this new initiative is that it is treating farmlands and our agricultural system as a national security issue, which it most assuredly is.
Modern agriculture, not just in the United States but across the developed world, is a complex, high-tech enterprise. In the United States today, a lower percentage of our population is engaged in agriculture than ever before, and they are feeding more people more reliably than at any other time in history. But this big, complex machine could be vulnerable to any hostile power; a fungus, a few infrastructure hits, and our system could be badly damaged. The result? A lot of people will be going hungry.
Editor's Note: The Deep State is working overtime to subvert President Trump's agenda and the will of the people.
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