Kansas AG Kris Kobach proposes statewide limits on foreign ownership, leasing of land

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach floated a proposal this week calling on the Kansas Legislature to ban foreign individual and corporate purchases of parcels of land bigger than 10 acres and to limit leases of land by foreign entities to two years in a bid to constrain the influence of adversarial countries such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Kobach, who testified before a joint House and Senate committee dedicated to foreign investments and land purchases, said the solution to bigger and bigger slices of Kansas’ 52 million acres being gobbled up by companies, people or governments outside the United States was obvious.

“U.S. citizens and companies must control our own land,” Kobach said. “It’s a hedge against the threat China and other foreign bad actors pose to our supply chain and our food security.”

He said Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri were among 24 states with barriers to nonresidents, foreign businesses and national governments owning interests in agricultural land. He said action in Kansas would be a proper response to countries intent on engaging in spying, economic disruption and criminal activity.

The 2023 Kansas Legislature mulled four bills — three in the Senate, one in the House — containing boundaries on foreign control of Kansas land. None gained significant traction. A collection of Kansas special interests, including the Kansas Livestock Association, questioned whether state lawmakers were serious about meddling in the free market and whether they were content embracing a statute of uncertain constitutionality.

Kobach said the Legislature should adopt a law given the state’s interest in food security, protecting sensitive infrastructure and opposition to criminal enterprises. He said a new generation of farmers were struggling to compete for land given market distortions created by international buyers.

Limiting Kansas’ restrictions to a handful of countries viewed by the federal government as foreign adversaries would make enforcement of state law almost impossible, he said.

“We are the only state in America’s breadbasket where there are no restrictions,” the attorney general said. “The only law that can stop Chinese interests from controlling Kansas land is one that stops all foreign nationals and corporations from acquiring Kansas land.”

AG’s investigatory power

Under Kobach’s draft bill, no person subject to jurisdiction or direction of a foreign government would be allowed to buy Kansas parcels of 10 acres or more after July 1, 2024. A parallel provision would cap at two years the leasing by foreign companies or individuals of Kansas parcels bigger than 10 acres. The bill would specifically declare the law wouldn’t be retroactive to land deals made before that date.

His bill would enable the State Finance Council, comprised of the governor and a bipartisan nexus of Senate and House leaders, would be authorized to grant exemptions to the law.

Under the bill, any person or entity associated with a foreign government that inherited land after enactment of the legislation would be give 12 months to divest of the property. Property transactions in violation of the Kansas law would be subject to forfeiture. The attorney general’s office would have jurisdiction to investigate land sales, transfers or conveyances.

Sen. Kellie Warren, a Leawood Republican, an attorney and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Kobach’s proposal to give himself unilateral investigatory power over land transactions in Kansas appeared unreasonably broad. In 2022, Kelly lost the Republican primary for attorney general to Kobach.

“That seems to me to be a … almost invasive look at private transactions between, it would seem, any kind of sale of property whether the size is 10 acres or more,” Warren said. “It just seems to me to be awfully broad to be investigating essentially any and every sale of property in Kansas.”

Democratic Sen. Ethan Corson, who also serves on the interim committee, said he was struck by Kobach’s enthusiasm for inserting state government directly into the free market in terms of Kansas land deals between willing sellers and buyers. He said that form of government intrusion was a fundamental challenge to bills setting new standards on sale of real property.

“For so many farmers,” Corson said, “that is essentially their retirement plan. They want to farm until they get to retirement age and then they want to sell that land and they want to maximize the value of that land in the open market.”

Not about politics?

Under current state law, corporations based outside Kansas must file a report with the Kansas secretary of state listing any acreage owned in Kansas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has collected information on U.S. agriculture holdings by foreign individuals and businesses since the 1970s.

The bill outlined by Kobach wouldn’t apply to owners of the some of the most influential agricultural companies in the United States. In 2013, for example, a Chinese corporation purchased Smithfield Foods, which is the largest pork producer in the United States and accounts for about one of every five hogs slaughtered in the U.S. each year. The nearly $5 billion Smithfield deal included acquisition of 176,000 acres of U.S. land, but the business wouldn’t be altered by Kobach’s bill.

Roger McEowen, professor of agricultural law and taxation at Washburn University in Topeka, said the issue of ownership in U.S. agriculture shouldn’t be viewed in political terms.

“Whichever approach the Legislature takes on this issue, what should remain front and center is that that whole matter involves national security and control of the food supply. Neither of those are political issues,” he said.

The committee meeting on land ownership included a presentation by Bob Fu, president of the China Aid Association. The organization, also known as ChinaAid, is a Christian nonprofit focused on raising awareness about human rights and religious freedom in China.

Fu, who was a student leader of Tiananmen Square protests more than 30 years ago, urged Kansas legislators to follow the two dozen states that created laws useful in undermining China’s ability to make ideological, political and economic inroads in the United States.

“It’s time to pass the proposed legislation for the sake of our future as a free state and nation,” he said. “This piece of legislation has nothing to do with race, ethnicity or even nationality. It’s about the core of our national security as a freedom-loving nation. It’s about the threat to our state and country by rogue regimes such as the Chinese Communist Party.”

This story was produced by the Kansas Reflector , a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy.