USDA fails to monitor foreign owners of farmland

A law requiring foreign investors to report transactions of farmland to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on the books for almost 40 years.  But as the amount of foreign-controlled farmland doubled in millions of acres between 2004 and 2014, the USDA has lapsed in enforcing the law, a review of USDA documents has found. The Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act was passed in 1978 to combat fears about increasing foreign investment in farmland.About 27.3 million acres of agricultural land in the United States are controlled – either owned or under a long-term lease agreement – by foreign investors, according to a USDA database of foreign investment in farmland.But, since 2011, the USDA has only assessed 10 fines under the law, worth $115,724, according to records obtained by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting through the Freedom of Information Act. And no fines were assessed in 2015, 2016 or so far in 2017.