Mississippi Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson issued the following statement.
The Study Committee on Foreign Purchase of Farmland in Mississippi held its first meeting today at the State Capitol. The Mississippi Legislature created this Study Committee through House Bill 280, 2023 Legislative Session, for the purpose of studying the purchasing, acquiring, leasing or holding an interest in agricultural land by foreign governments.
“Food security is national security. America is strong because of our food, fiber, and shelter production capabilities we must protect our farmland against adversarial foreign interest,” said Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson. “We have found that some 757,000 acres, over two percent of Mississippi’s agricultural land, is controlled by foreign interests. As the Study Committee further explores the issue of foreign purchases of farmland, we will consider a number of factors including national security, food security, landowners’ property rights and international trade. The Study Committee looks forward to submitting a report of findings to the Legislature by December 1.”
The Study Committee is composed of the following nine members: Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson; Whitney Lipscomb, Designee of the Attorney General; Representative Angela Cockerham, Chairman of House Judiciary A Committee; Senator Brice Wiggins, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary A Committee; Bill Pigott, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee; Senator Chuck Younger, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee; David Bradley Hall, Appointee of the Governor; Meredith Allen, Appointee of the Lieutenant Governor; and Ted Kendall, IV, Appointee of the Speaker of the House.
At its first meeting, the Study Committee elected Commissioner Andy Gipson as Chairman, Representative Bill Pigott as Vice Chairman and Representative Angela Cockerham as Secretary. The Study Committee also approved its procedures and future meeting dates with further details to be announced later.
Visit www.mdac.ms.gov/farmland for more information about the Study Committee including meeting proceedings and USDA foreign ownership information. Public comments are welcome via email and can be submitted at farmland@mdac.ms.gov through November 9, 2023.
17 comments:
It's OK. They're just going to grow rice there.
If those dang Californians can just buy up our land, we will all soon be driving electric cars and wearing dresses.
We should require a Mississippi driver’s license to own land!
Legislate a state tax without loopholes for foreign land owners and use it to buttress PERS.
Suddenly the problem is solved.
If you want to buy that rich Mississippi mud because you polluted your arable farmlands with heavy metals from lithium battery factories powered by coal power plants then you cough up some tribute to Mississippians.
They will pay us because you can’t eat iPhones.
Try buying land in China! Might not be as easy as you might think! If something not done to control foreign purchase of our land, it could end up being out of control.
It is easy for them to buy our land as they have already bought many of our leaders. I would like to see them take their bought politicians home with them.
11:34am for Governor.
Every foreign business deal made with China requires partnership with the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China. The PRC shouldn’t have any issues with State government imposing a similar partnership. In fact, it might be better for individual states to make trade deals with China should our own nation become fractured.
Nothing to see here. Japanese bought Pebble Beach decades ago. (And sold it because it was a huge money loser.)
This is nothing more than a giant distraction. Let's get upset over the rumor that China will overtake our geography when the fact is they already own our White House.
More horseshit from the usual suspects. Dutch (about 360,000 acres) and German citizens/entities (about 60,000 acres) own over half those 750,000 acres and Chinese citizens/entities own less than 90 - NINETY, nine-zero, not 90,000 - of them. Over 525,000 of those acres are forestry, not "farmland." It would seem that if the Chinese or CCP were attempting to "buy up" Mississippi's farmland, or land of any type, they are taking a particularly slow-moving approach. It would have to be quite a tax on that 90 acres to make even a minuscule part of a basis-point difference for PERS. If a tax so high that it did make a difference for PERS were attempted, it would get shot down in court before a penny of it was collected, even assuming the Chinese owners didn't simply sell the acreage and have done with the issue.
And as asides, re: the Chinese: China is about 2,300,000,000 acres, of which 300,000,000 acres are rice fields, so 90 acres is not, to say the very least, meaningful to its (or Mississippi's) food security, and re: the Dutch: do a little Googling on Forrest City Farms and the de Regt family - Mississippi State ag extension and the soybean producer's association can provide some insight for those interested, but they are hardly nefarious "foreign agents" seeking to undermine the US or Mississippi food supply.
At least have the common sense to educate yourself about that which you want to hysterically rant and rave.
10:54: Ha So, comrade.
Next time post on Tik Tok
2PM ranted and raved:
"10:54: Ha So, comrade.
Next time post on Tik Tok"
From the Committee's own report:
"• Netherlands Ag and NonAg Landholdings: 357,582 acres.
• Germany Ag and NonAg Landholdings: 60,352 acres.
• China Ag Landholdings: 88 acres."
The capitalist, said Khrushchev, will sell us the rope with which we'll hang him.
And they'll hang him on a gallows they erect on the land he sold them.
In Amurka, everything's for sale.
2:00 may not be the brightest, but they sure got a laugh out of me
"The capitalist, said Khrushchev, will sell us the rope with which we'll hang him.
And they'll hang him on a gallows they erect on the land he sold them."
Khrushchev, said the capitalist (me), was deposed, essentially wiped from contemporary Soviet history in both practice and spirit, and died depressed, essentially in domestic exile and basically alone, save for a few family members (most of whom suffered repercussions for their troubles). The Soviet Union was itself gone two decades after he was. Russia, after moving toward a nascent democracy-ishness, allowed a corrupt asshole to seize power and is now teetering on the brink of ruin and collapse, steered into political, geo-political, and internal and external economic misadventures by that corrupt asshole who is, interestingly, much admired by Donald J. Trump.
The US, with all its faults, is still the only true complete global power and its actual Trump (a corrupt pseudo-capitalist, interestingly enough) will likely soon be much like the US's version of Khrushchev. His hero Putin will likely not end up even as well as Khrushchev (i.e., allowed to "retire" but alive). China is facing a host of serious threats to its existence as a socialist state and will likely fail and undergo dramatic change ala the former USSR.
I'd say the US, along with capitalism and democracy, is so far ahead of both what's left of the USSR as well as today's China, along with socialism, communism, Stalinism, and Maoism, that it isn't even a remotely close contest, nor was it ever or will it ever be. And neither Trump nor Biden will be thought of favorably by history when they are thought of at all.
Don Drane at 3:46 "Let's get upset over the rumor that China will overtake our geography when the fact is they already own our White House."
Under Trump it would be owned by his friend Putin and Russia and North Korea! No telling what he has already shared with these communist terrorists!
We should not be in the business of selling any of our farm land to any foreign country, especially Soviet Union, China. Why is this even being co side red? Unfortunately a few too many elected leaders are a little short on common sense. Y’all better stop before you piss us off and we decide to run against you dimwits!
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