Rep. Stefanik Introduces Bill to Prevent Adversaries’ Control Over US Agriculture Industry

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill to address domestic food security issues and the global food supply chain.

Stefanik’s bill, joined by Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), “would prevent adversaries’ acquisition of American companies amid a global supply chain food shortage,” Fox News reported on June 30.

Stefanik also wrote on Twitter June 30, “Food security is national security.”

She said, “I am proud to work to prevent our foreign adversaries from taking any ownership or control over the U.S. agriculture industry.”

Stefanik said, “Adversarial nations, like China, continue to threaten our homeland, using tactics like buying American agriculture companies and stealing agriculture research to undermine our economy,” Fox News reported.

In the proposed legislation, Stefanik included a provision that would make the Secretary of Agriculture a member of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment and would require reporting from the secretary to address the national security risk of “foreign purchases” of companies in the agriculture sector.

Earlier in June, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem wrote for Fox News, “China is buying up millions of acres of land across the United States, following the same blueprint they have used in other countries for years.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks to attendees at the NCGOP convention in Greenville, N.C., on June 5, 2021. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

One example would be China’s Fufeng Group’s purchase of 370 acres of land in Grand Forks, North Dakota—“the largest single private capital investment in the region’s history”—as the location for a massive new corn-milling plant, The Epoch Times reported in February.

Ross Kennedy, founder of Fortis Analysis, told The Epoch Times the regime has become “very involved in major infrastructure projects” around the world in recent years, noting that some of their chosen locations have been “regions of strategic and national security importance.”

The Pressing Food Supply Chain Shortages

Various government policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have devastated the essential flow of food from farms to producers and consumers.

Stefanik told Fox, “Washington must realize that agriculture security in national security, and we have a duty to protect our food supply and those who produce it.”

As Noem also wrote: “Americans deserve to have their leaders treat disruptions in our food system—from foreign interference to fires to shortages—with concern.”

She specifically referred to the “strategic vulnerability” when it comes to the nation’s food supply; including everyday essentials such as fuel, semiconductors, and even baby formula, to the incidents shutting down food facilities.

In particular, Noem mentioned a 2019 fire at the nation’s second-largest beef packing plant in Holcomb, Kansas. The fire shuttered the facility for four months when the plant was “responsible for six percent of total daily beef slaughter,” she wrote.