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USDA announces National Farm Security Action Plan
The USDA has unveiled its National Farm Security Action Plan, designed to address agriculture security in America. Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins says protecting the country’s ag land and food supply from foreign control is a priority for the Trump administration. “This plan includes seven key action items, each of which will promote agricultural prosperity, defend the foundations of agriculture, and strengthen our domestic food supply,” she says.
She says the top priority is to secure and protect American farmland. “Land owned by foreign nationals can pose a threat to national security and future economic prosperity,” she says. “Too much American land is owned by nationals of adversarial countries, and more than 265,000 acres in the United States are owned by Chinese nationals.” Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland accounts for approximately 0.02 percent to 0.03 percent of all privately held U.S. agricultural land.
Rollins says there is a renewed focus on enhancing research security, and the department will evaluate its programs to ensure it aligns with America First policies, specifically. “We are eliminating all agreements going to people and entities in countries of concern or other foreign adversaries,” she says. “We are immediately prioritizing all USDA funding in America for American-made technology, research, and innovation.”
She says safeguarding plant and animal health is also crucial to strengthening domestic agricultural productivity.
Rollins tells Brownfield it goes beyond protecting livestock and row crop industries. “It’s also about national security,” she says. “Now, do we really want, and I know we don’t, but the question is, do we really want a scenario where we have to buy all of our beef from a foreign country, especially potentially a country that is not aligned with our national security interests?”
She says the goal is to prevent the weaknesses in America’s food supply chain from being exposed.
The plan also focuses on enhancing agriculture’s supply chain resilience, protecting the U.S. nutrition safety net from fraud, abuse, and foreign entities, and protecting critical infrastructure.
Thank you, President Trump, and Secretary Rollins. The United States’ land belongs to the people and, more importantly, the farmers of the United States, not to outsiders. Most other nations in the world do not permit foreigners to purchase land within their borders. Our land is our most valuable natural resource, and we must protect it from our adversaries.