As the long-awaited US Farm Bill nears its five-year review in September 2023, expatriate agriculture by the Chinese is in the spotlight. Many nations lease land in the US, with China coming behind 17 other countries.
Between 2015 and 2023, land acquisition in the United States by Chinese investors has risen by a cumulative 98%. The highest rise was in the 2019-21 period when the acreage spiked by 30% from 247,000 acres to 347,000 acres. Currently in 2023, the second biggest economy in the world owns 384,000 acres in the United States.
China is by no means the only nation reaching out for American land. It is not even in the top 10 but the 18th, rather. Canada leads with 12.845 million acres, followed by the Netherlands at 4.875 million acres. Ireland is the tenth in a top-10 list of countries that are exclusively European.
Land under Chinese investors in the US is valued at $2 billion in August, 2023.
China looking homeward
At the heart of the matter is lack of rich soil for farming within China. As arable land dwindles to a mere 13% in the huge country of 9.6 million km2, the state is looking for ways to make itself a home grower and less of an importer. Notably, the 13% represents farmland that has good soil. The rest of arable land has alkaline soil that is not good to farm.
China requires 120 million hectares (ha) to be food self-reliant. Currently, the government of President Xi Jinping is doing a rigorous land reclamation drive. 171,000 hectares is the area recovered so far.
The Great Leap Forward and Mao Era agricultural policies have each contributed to the current land demand. In the late 1950s, the government mobilized the population into mining in a bid for rapid industrialization. In Mao times, swathes of rich northeast forests went down in a bid to cultivate communal crops. Fertilizer usage degraded land in this region.
In modern times, land degradation in China is having the same effect as the Great Famine of 1959 to 1961 that emanated from focus on industrialization instead of farming.
Currently, President Xi Jiping wants to see that every rice bowl brims with “Chinese grains.” Growing rice is a key goal of making the reclaimed land productive.