美国农业部和美国外国投资委员会对美国农业用地“外国人”相关投资加强审查的总体趋势

April 2026 Since the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in 2024 recommending updatesto the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA) regulations1 to provide forgreater verification and monitoring of foreign investment in agricultural land and coordination with theCommittee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Trump Administration has steadily The USDA has already updated a new digital filing process, and with this ANPRM, USDA is taking additional steps to increase efficiencyto “provide timely, accurate, and detailed data for CFIUS agencies’ use”3 to better protect national security interests. Investors,including fund managers, should take stock of their “foreign person” status and take preemptive compliance steps to manage the Overview of AFIDA and Proposed Revisions AFIDA requires “foreign persons” who invest or hold interests in US “agricultural land” to submit a report. For the purposes of this •A “foreign person” includes non-US entities and persons and any investor that is 10% or more, or 50% or more in the •“Agricultural land” covers US land used for forestry production or, within last five years, for farming, ranching, or timberproduction, with certain exceptions for smaller sized properties with minimal sales and production.5 In the report to the USDA, AFIDA requires detailed reporting on, among other things, the relevant foreign ownership, legal description andacreage of agricultural land, and subject property interest, to the secretary of agriculture through a newly developed online reporting system. The ANPRM sought public input on the proposed updates to improve reporting efficiency and information collection activities, andprovide timely, accurate and detailed foreign person ownership data for CFIUS agencies’ use, all of which to better address national Current Perceived Gaps in AFIDA Reporting Requirements In the ANPRM, the USDA highlights several gaps in the current AFIDA regulations that it aims to address with US national security andagricultural land interests in mind. These include difficulties in accurately identifying land and property boundaries, the high reportingthreshold for foreign persons with a “significant or substantial interest” (e.g., those with directly/indirectly 10% or more interests), the The GAO, in its 2024 report, concluded that the USDA’s “processes to collect, track, and report key information are flawed,” including itsreliance on paper forms.6During the GAO’s review, the USDA had already been “keeping a real-time log of AFIDA filing activity for investorsfrom the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea,”7consistent with its obligations under the Consolidated AppropriationsAct of 2023. But this information was not effectively shared among national security agencies “early in the process except through a manual 3Id. ANPRM Proposals to Expand/Revise •Online whistleblower reporting process– The USDA launched “an online portal for farmers, ranchers and thepublic to report possible false or failed reporting of foreign In the ANPRM, the USDA outlined the following priorities toconsider for updates relating to its AFIDA improvement goals: •USDA-CFIUS Memorandum of Understanding– On July 7, 2025, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins signed thismemorandum of understanding with the Department ofthe Treasury to formalize the USDA’s role as a member ofCFIUS for reviews involving agricultural land, biotechnology •Improving efficiency in identifying “foreign persons”required to file reports under AFIDA regulations anddetermining if foreign adversaries should meet different(more stringent) reporting standards, by revisiting the •Updating the scope of the information the filer is requiredto provide about agricultural land and reviewing potentialchanges to exclusions within the definitions of “agricultural Key Comments Received by the USDA Farmers’ unions, think tanks, state entities and reform coalitionssubmitted comments to the ANPRM. These commenterswere generally aligned on the need to improve filing efficiency, •Enhancing the disclosures necessary for multitiered interestholders and ensuring indirect foreign person ownership data iscomplete and verifiable, such as by requiring additional details •One of the farmers’ unions thought the AFIDA filingimprovements should be paired with audits and consistent •A state department of agriculture and some nonprofitorganizations argued for stricter reporting requirementsor enforcement for applicable investments by foreign •Clarifying how reporting requirements apply to foreignpersons with indirect interests, such as when more thanone foreign person has a “significant interest or substantialcontrol” in any given filer. The USDA noted in the ANPRM Some Unanswered Questions •Considering whether filers should provide precisegeospatial property boundaries and maps, noting that There are some unanswered questions regarding how broadlyCFIUS and A