Keeping Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Owned

Wisconsin Land in Foreign Hands?

Wisconsin these days is not exactly a bunker of laissez-faire, small-farm agriculture in a world dominated by agribusiness; like most places in the Midwest in recent years, it’s more a complex ecosystem where family farms, global capital, and state law intersect in a thick legal haze, always on the verge of collision, like cows escaping onto a highway from a foggy pasture.

Every so often, though, a clear and reasoned moo warns through the haze.

And that’s exactly what the lowing of the lawmakers was all about recently at a public hearing on a bill that is straightforward in concept: prohibit “foreign adversaries” from owning or acquiring land in Wisconsin, particularly agricultural and forestry property.

Under the bill, a “foreign adversary” means what federal law already defines it as—nations designated by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce as engaged in long-term conduct adverse to American national security: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba, to name a few. The beauty of the legislation is that it is targeted, not blanket; it is meant to restrict ownership tied to hostile governments, not to shut the door on all global investment.

It’s a good start. Other states and Congress are doing the same with their own versions. It should also not be the end of the discussion about land use and agricultural preservation in this state.

There is at least one other bill moving its way through the state legislature regarding foreign owned agriculture land ownership.

Indeed, once the threat of hostile ownership of land is addressed, the legislature should turn to a far thornier issue: the globalist threat to our farmlands. That’s a different beast from foreign ownership altogether, but no less an international threat to our sovereignty, and so far the legislature hasn’t recognized or acknowledged its dangers.

First, though, the legislation at hand: stopping a de facto invasion by hostile foreign nations through land purchases and long-term leases. The fact is, Wisconsin already limits agricultural and forestry holdings by foreign entities to 640 acres, and foreign landowners can exceed the 640-acre cap for other projects only if they engage in explicitly permitted statutory activities, including delineated manufacturing or mercantile activities.

But the law is a sieve. Exceptions are numerous, often unclear, and easily circumvented. A totalitarian hottentot could dance the night away undeterred by the statutory fencing that’s supposed to keep the cows in their place.

Mining, manufacturing, mercantile activity—nearly everything short of milking a cow is widely permitted. As then attorney general JB Van Hollen put it in a 2014 attorney general’s opinion, the exemptions are “extremely broad, embracing almost every conceivable business activity,” leaving agriculture and forestry as the lone effective material prohibitions.

The proposed legislation heard last week in committee maintains the 640-acre rule for eligible foreign entities but it also builds a wall to keep out undesirable and dangerous international investors, namely, foreign adversaries. That is to say, menacing cows must be culled before a collision of interests occurs.

At the hearing, one of the bill’s authors, Sen. André Jacque (R-New Franken), boiled the issue down its singular proposition.

“This legislation seeks to prohibit land ownership in Wisconsin—both agricultural and non-agricultural—by foreign adversaries,” Jacque testified. “Over the past decade, foreign ownership of U.S. farmland has nearly doubled. This troubling trend has sparked bipartisan concern at both the federal and state levels, as lawmakers across the country recognize the threat it poses to national security, economic stability, and food independence.”

Jacque pointed out that Wisconsin, like 23 other states, including Minnesota and Iowa, has existing limits on foreign ownership of agricultural land.

“But these laws don’t go far enough,” he testified. “They fail to distinguish between countries with whom we share strategic alliances and those that actively work against our national interests.”

The proposed legislation would address that gap, Jacque testified: “It focuses on a specific threat: land purchases by foreign adversaries—countries that include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba—identified under federal law as actively undermining the security and sovereignty of the United States.”

Jacque’s colleague, bill co-author Rep. William Penterman (R-Hustisford), underscored the importance of updating state law to reflect modern threats.

“Given growing national concern over foreign adversaries using land acquisitions to compromise U.S. food security, conduct espionage, or disrupt supply chains, this legislation mirrors actions already taken in other states,” Penterman testified. “It is a proactive measure to protect Wisconsin’s agriculture, economy, and sovereignty from geopolitical threats.”

More specifically, according to the text, the bill would prohibit foreign adversaries from acquiring, owning, or holding any real property in Wisconsin, directly or indirectly; property interests acquired in violation of the prohibition would be subject to forfeiture to the state; and any person or entity designated as a foreign principal would be required to divest those property holdings within 180 days.

The legislation would apply only to interests acquired on or after the effective date, ensuring clarity and fairness for current landholders. At the hearing, Jacque stressed that the intent was not to close the state to international investment: “It is about drawing a necessary line to protect Wisconsin’s critical resources—our farmland, our food systems, and our communities—from regimes that have demonstrated hostile intent.”

Jacque said the numbers were stark.

“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, foreign agricultural interests now own over 500,000 acres of land in Wisconsin,” he testified. “That number continues to rise by tens of thousands of acres each year. And while Wisconsin currently caps foreign ownership at 640 acres per entity, those limits are not tailored to national security threats.”

The threat, Jacque argued, is not hypothetical. Real-world reminders that access to U.S. agricultural resources is a backdoor to biological disruption exist, the senator testified.

“Two Chinese nationals—one an avowed loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party—were arrested this year for smuggling a dangerous fungus, Fusarium graminearum, into the Midwest,” he testified. “This fungus, which causes wheat and grain blight, is considered a potential agroterrorism weapon and has been responsible for billions in economic losses worldwide. The pair were conducting research at the University of Michigan allegedly funded in part by the Chinese government.”

Real-life threat

In a world where land is capital, data, strategic access, and—quite literally—nutrition, Jacque’s bill aims to ensure that Wisconsin’s land cannot become a weapon against Wisconsin or the nation. Other testimony was just as blunt as Jacque’s, just as detailed, and, if you care about national sovereignty, just as chilling.

One of those bone-cutting warnings came from Cheryl Yu, a fellow in China Studies at the Jamestown Foundation, whose research primarily focuses on the Chinese Communist Party’s global ambitions and the network she said it is building overseas, primarily in the United States.

“First, PRC [People’s Republic of China] has a global ambition in replacing the United States as the leading power on the world stage,” Yu testified. “This goal drives every major policy initiative from Beijing. Beijing’s goal is to reshape the world order in ways that expand its political control, economic leverage, and military reach.”

Second, Yu added, under what is known as a military-civil infusion strategy, companies that appear to be private are still expected to serve state and military objectives.

“Third, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is also increasingly applying a flexible approach, which is ‘not to be owned, but to be used,’” she testified. “This means that even if an asset isn’t formally owned by the state, it must still be available for the state’s use. In other words, the party doesn’t need to hold title, it only needs influence and access.”

Those principles of China’s approach matter to Wisconsin, Yu explained.

“There are both industrial and agricultural lands in Wisconsin with strong united front links,” she testified. “They own mills and industrial utilities on key sites along the state’s transportation and water networks. One of these facilities has already used their abilities to mobilize all procurement capabilities in America to source emergency materials for shipment to China. These companies collaborate with their base in China to deliver these materials inside China.”

That example shows exactly how the CCP’s military-civil fusion strategy functions in practice, Yu said: “A company that appears private abroad can be instantly repurposed for Party-directed logistics when needed. If it can be activated once, it can be activated again.”

There are other examples, Yu testified.

“Another company, controlled by state-owned China National Chemical Corporation and Sinochem Group, both listed by the Department of Defense as Chinese military companies, operates agricultural research sites in Plainfield, Wisconsin,” she testified. “Under the military-civil fusion policy, even those agricultural networks can be leveraged for logistics, data, or supply-chain access.”

Yu said the proposed bill would give Wisconsin the legal tools to prevent those risks before they grow.

“It bars foreign adversaries, like the PRC, its state-controlled companies and individuals, from acquiring new real property in this state,” she testified. “This is not about limiting investment, it’s about protecting national security and sovereignty.”

Yu also said the bill aligns Wisconsin law with federal national-security policy, ensuring that farmland, water, and infrastructure cannot be turned into logistics nodes for a foreign military or political system.

In other words, companies headquartered in China are not as independent as those in the United States but rather are legal extensions of the Chinese government. Chinese national-security laws require individuals and organizations to support intelligence work on demand, and, if a company refuses to cooperate, it’s not simply disloyal—it is a criminal offense.

And there are direct military concerns, as Robert Pierce, a military intelligence analyst, cited in a similar hearing this past June. Sometimes, Pierce observed, it’s not the land itself that is important; it’s what the land is near.

“In Texas, a former Chinese military officer acquired 100,000 acres near Laughlin Air Force Base under the pretext of developing a wind farm,” Pierce testified. “That project prompted the Texas Legislature to pass specific legislation halting it due to dual-use and espionage concerns.”

Such incidents are not isolated, Pierce warned: “They reflect a pattern of activity by the CCP to gain footholds inside the U.S., often under the radar, and to exploit our open system for strategic advantage.”

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation (WFBF)—the state’s largest general agriculture organization—has endorsed the bill, which, it argues, properly distinguishes foreign adversaries from friendly foreign investment, secures land against malign control, and retains general 640-acre caps for other foreign persons.

“We believe this bill provides needed protection to ensure Wisconsin land is not possessed by those who might seek to do us harm while maintaining long-established standards that have allowed us to benefit from investment and partnership,” the WFBF said in testimony.

Unintended consequences

Opponents at the hearing discussed practical concerns, some of which were more sympathetically received than others.

Scott Suder, president of the Wisconsin Paper Council, said the legislation would create uncertainty for companies like ND Paper, which he said, even though incorporated in the United States, could unintentionally fall victim to the “overly broad and arguably ambiguous language” in the bill.

“Such broad language raises serious questions for our organization,” Suder testified. “Paper mills are often the economic lifeblood of small, rural communities like Biron, a village with 839 people. And we all know that Wisconsin simply cannot afford to lose another paper mill.”

The council’s concerns extend beyond just one paper company, Suder said.

“For each paper mill job, there is a multiplier effect of 4-6 additional jobs being created and sustained,” he testified. “A disruption in the suspension of production for one paper mill has a devastating ripple effect throughout the entire forest products industry supply chain. The impact of losing a paper mill creates a cascade of economic turmoil throughout the entire industry.”

Suder pointed to ND Paper, a U.S. incorporated company that rehabilitated a major mill operation and employs hundreds in central Wisconsin. The company’s CEO testified back in June that the bill’s definition of “foreign principal” could classify it as foreign-adversary-controlled because—depending on stock ownership fluctuations—Chinese or Hong Kong interests could exceed the bill’s 50 percent threshold for such classification.

The ND example captured one of the hardest scenarios for lawmakers to navigate. The company’s CEO is a U.S. citizen, and, over seven years, the company has invested more than $300 million in its Biron paper mill, preserving 250 full-time jobs and contributing $500,000 each month to the local economy. On the one hand, the state shouldn’t nuke 250 American jobs to thump Beijing. On the other hand, though it’s not the specific case with ND, the state also shouldn’t let an apparently American company operate if it in fact turns out to be a PRC-tied industrial entity.

That said, the Paper Council raised an important point: an unintentional condemnation of a legitimate U.S. business or corporate ally as a foreign adversary. In testimony, Suder hoped that further refinements could be worked out to avoid penalizing good-faith employers, which would seem reasonable. But the core principle must hold: state law must prioritize national security over capital flows.

From foreign to global…ist

At the end of the day, banning land purchases by our geopolitical adversaries is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Foreign ownership comes in different weight classes—unfriendly, merely foreign, and the new heavyweight division: globalist ownership and control, where the true objective is less about turning land into productive enterprise and more about turning it into an instrument of political or commercial leverage.

Wisconsin, and the country as a whole, needs to reckon with this. The central issue is no longer simply about who owns or controls the land, but what that land is being used for and how those uses might undermine America’s future capacity to feed itself, grow its economy, and maintain energy security, not to mention maintain enough land for manufacturing and other commercial development.

The point being, nefarious control and use of land to undermine American sovereignty can and is being undertaken by officially friendly foreign entities, corporations, and nations. It isn’t just foreign adversaries like Iran and China we must worry about, it’s also adversaries and competitors, corporate and government, within the western alliance that are seeking control over American soil, both for profit and as a means to undermine the nation’s independence.

Those missions are why foreign land ownership overall is suddenly escalating, especially for agricultural land. Numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, crunched by Farm Bureau economist Daniel Munch, show that, in 2023, foreign investors held 45.85 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, accounting for 3.61 percent of all privately held farmland. That’s up 1.58 million acres in a year and up 5 million acres since 2021, Munch reported.

“Since 2010, reported foreign-held agricultural land in the U.S. has grown by 21 million acres—an 85 percent increase—averaging an annual gain of 1.62 million acres,” Munch wrote. “This expansion, equivalent to an area larger than the state of South Carolina, has raised foreign ownership from 2 percent to 3.6 percent of all privately held agricultural land in the country.”

Almost double, and it’s good land, Munch reported: forestland, 48 percent (21.9 million acres); cropland, 29 percent (13.2 million acres); and 17 percent (7.7 million acres) was pastureland.

“Over the past five years (between 2018 and 2023), foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land have seen growth across all categories: a 101 percent increase in cropland, 28 percent in forestland, 15 percent in pastureland and 38 percent in other agricultural land,” he wrote. “This reveals heightened interest by foreign investors in cropland as opposed to other land categories.”

Most concerning to me, per Munch’s report, foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land include long-term leases of 10 years or more: “This provision is particularly relevant for renewable energy companies, many of which, especially foreign entities, secure land through extended leases rather than outright purchases. This approach provides access to large tracts of land for projects like wind farms and solar arrays while minimizing the financial burden of ownership.”

Since 2010, Munch reported, foreign renewable energy investments in U.S. agricultural land have increased by at least 10.4 million acres—a 353 percent rise, accounting for nearly half of the 21-million-acre total increase in foreign-owned agricultural land during this period.

“In the past five years (2018–2023), this trend has intensified, with renewable energy entities driving 76 percent of the total growth in foreign-owned agricultural land, contributing 7.55 million acres out of the 9.96-million-acre increase,” he wrote. “Between 2022 and 2023 alone, entities with renewable energy-related terms in their names accounted for 54 percent of the 1.58-million-acre increase. It’s important to note that these figures represent minimum estimates, as not all renewable energy companies are captured through these specific terms.”

As Munch observed, this is a highly contentious trend, encompassing as it does the rights of property owners to use, sell, or lease their property as they see fit, but also implicating the removal over time of prime farmland from production. Much of the drive from American land is coming not from China but from Europe, where strict carbon offset mandates exist and, as Munch reports, corporations face mounting pressure to meet environmental goals.

Put simply, we’re trading farmland for solar panels, wind turbines, and carbon credits—an exchange that bets the nation’s food and energy security on a speculative global market and the virtue-signaling of international corporate/bureaucratic governance boards in Brussels and Berlin. But when productive land disappears, food prices rise and economic resilience weakens. There is the risk of implosion because of a lack of productive land, held by globalist interests hostile to our sovereignty, whether formally recognized as such or not.

To say it another way, ownership of land by Davos- and Bill Gates-controlled entities can be as dangerous as ownership by Beijing.

Fold that into the international push to place 30 percent of U.S. land and water into permanent “protection”—a United Nations target the Biden administration touted—and the threat becomes urgent. Though the Trump administration halted implementation of Biden’s so-called “America the Beautiful” campaign, the movement thrives in state and local initiatives.

Increasingly, the preferred tool here is the conservation easement, a document that locks land use—or the lack thereof—“in perpetuity.” If conditions change—economically, technologically, environmentally—the landowner’s heirs or new owners have no recourse.

Diamonds are forever, and so are conservation easements. (Unless you’re the easement holder, who can thwart preserved agricultural or other uses if changing conditions threaten the conservation priority of the easement. Who knew?!)

These easements are increasingly associated with large carbon-credit financial schemes. As I will write about in a separate piece, in northern Wisconsin, to cite just one example, about 26,000 acres are on the chopping block for a conservation easement in Sawyer, Bayfield, and Price counties, including approximately 2,000 acres currently held by Aurora Sustainable Lands in Price County, which is debating the proposal. Aurora works in partnership Anew Climate, a carbon credit company, which is in turn a subsidiary of TPG Rise Climate, whose executive chairman is former treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson.

And what has that got to do with the price of eggs in China?

That’s a good question and one begging for an answer because Paulson founded the Paulson Institute, which is a close partner of China in promoting global decarbonization solutions. Notably, the Paulson Institute has two major offices, one in Chicago and one in Beijing, and the institute itself describes its work as addressing “some of the most pressing environmental challenges facing China and the world.”

Ah, there’s China, and then there’s the rest of the world.

And this is who is clawing its way into northern Wisconsin, attempting to place in Price County alone 2,000 more acres under eternal government control, monetizing the natural resources of the land through essentially fictional carbon credits that will do nothing to reduce carbon emissions but will likely ultimately aid the Chinese government and polluters, and forever foreclose its use to U.S. sovereign interests and landowners.

To sum up, Jacque’s bill aims to thwart the takeover of Wisconsin land by foreign adversarial interests, but there is much work to be done in thwarting the conversion and sequestration of our lands, particularly our forests and farmlands, into profit-making, fake environmental schemes that keep us in a perpetual state of dependence and undermine national sovereignty.

In the latter case, lawmakers aren’t seeing the cows for the climate fog, and there’s a moo-licious assault on private property rights afoot. Unless the legislature gets serious about conservation easements, there’s a collision right around the corner.