Laws on foreign land ownership following trend

Arkansas among 29 states that share similar legal restrictions

Arkansas is one of more than two dozen states that in recent years have enacted laws restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land.

The most significant piece of such legislation in Arkansas is Act 636 of 2023. The law, which is subject to an ongoing federal lawsuit, bars certain foreign-party controlled businesses from owning agricultural land.

The uptick in state legislation on foreign landownership has largely occurred in the past few years. Chinese landownership has taken center stage in the debate across the country and in Arkansas.

The results of a study from Michigan State University researchers “suggest that while protecting state agricultural assets is part of the consideration, these state legislative actions are also responding to national security concerns raised by China-related incidents in recent years,” the abstract of the study states. The study was published in 2025.

Act 636 includes ownership percentage specifications, and authorizes the state’s attorney general to take action if a company is noncompliant. The applicable interest in a company is one controlled by an entity, government, citizen or resident of a country subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations or designated “an Entity of Particular Concern” by the U.S. Department of State.

Such countries include: China, North Korea and Iran.

The law applies even if the entity doesn’t intend to use the agricultural land for farming purposes, according to the National Agricultural Law Center’s website.

Recent reporting by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette revealed Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ administration used the state attorney general’s office to assail businesses as run by Communist China, despite her staff knowing those claims were unproven and the companies might be following state laws.

TRENDS IN FOREIGN LAND OWNERSHIP LAWS

In the early 2020s, “a super majority of” U.S. states “affirmatively allowed for foreign ownership of agricultural land,” said Harrison Pittman, director of the National Agricultural Law Center. Now, according to the center’s website, approximately 29 states have enacted laws in some way restricting foreign ownership of, or investments in, private agricultural land.

Pittman attributes the trend to a “purchase of land by an entity connected to a Chinese company near an Air Force base in the state of Texas.”

That “really started generating a lot of interest in the overall issue of foreign ownership,” Pittman said.

Companies owned by a Chinese billionaire purchased land in Southwest Texas with plans to build a wind farm, according to a 2021 Forbes article. The plan drew widespread attention, and prompted 2021 infrastructure legislation from the Lone Star state affecting companies tied to China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.

The National Agricultural Law Center, which is part of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, notes on its website “another transaction that raised concerns” for some lawmakers was the Fufeng Group’s purchase of land near an Air Force base in North Dakota. The Fufeng Group is a massive Chinese company that, among other things, deals in bio-fermentation, according to the company’s website.

“For all the attention this issue receives,” Pittman said, about 3.5% of U.S. agricultural land has some form of foreign ownership. That includes long-term leases on land owned by U.S. citizens, he said.

About two-thirds of foreign agricultural land ownership in the U.S. is tied to Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, Pittman said. Those countries are all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“The amount of acreage attributed to some form of Chinese ownership is quite small,” Pittman said.

ARKANSAS’ FOREIGN LAND OWNERSHIP

In Arkansas, as of Dec. 31, 2024, foreign investors owned 5.6% of the state’s agricultural land, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. That’s about 1.49 million acres.

Foreign agricultural land ownership data through 2024 is the most recent available on federal websites.

The USDA tracks foreign owned agricultural land under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978. There are no federal laws currently restricting foreign ownership of private agricultural land, according to the National Agricultural Law Center’s website.

Foreign investors owning the most land in Arkansas in 2024 were from Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, according to the USDA.

The department’s data notes there may be some foreign owned land not reported to AFIDA, and also listed some data under “no foreign investor listed”, and “no predominant country code.”

In a USDA data portal, 160 acres of land in Arkansas were shown as being owned by an investor from China as of the end of 2024. In the USDA report on 2024, Syngenta Seeds was listed as owning 160 acres in Craighead County — 150 acres in crop land, and 10 acres in “Non Ag” land.

Shortly following the passage of Act 636, Republican Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin in 2023 gave the company Syngenta Seeds two years to divest ownership in land it owned in Craighead County.

The move made Arkansas the first state in the nation to enforce a foreign land ownership law, according to the National Agricultural Law Center’s website.

The company in 2025 sold land it owned in Craighead County, sale information on the county assessor’s website show.

Arkansas was unlike several states in that legislation did not have a grandfather clause for transactions that occurred prior to the law’s enactment, Pittman said. Many states, not including Arkansas, also had research exceptions, he said.

ARKANSAS LAWS

In addition to Act 636, Arkansas has other laws related to foreign land ownership.

In 2025, Sanders signed Act 811, which further restricted certain foreign ownership and leasing of land in Arkansas, including around critical infrastructure.

Prior to the significant national uptick of states passing foreign ownership laws, Arkansas in 2021 passed a law requiring foreign owners of agricultural land to report ownership information to the state’s Department of Agriculture. It mirrors the federal reporting requirements under AFIDA. The 2021 law established fines for noncompliant companies.

In addition to Act 636, Act 174 of 2024 is being challenged in the federal lawsuit. The case is still being litigated.

Act 174 of 2024 was an amendment to the Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 that bars prohibited foreign-party controlled businesses from any ownership interests in digital mining operations in Arkansas.