JEFFERSON CITY — A Chinese company’s ownership of Missouri farmland emerged as a campaign issue in the current U.S. Senate contest, but the size of those holdings is smaller than first reported.
The nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a September 2021 report on foreign purchases of U.S. farmland, said the parent company of Smithfield Farms, a leading pork producer, owned 146,000 acres of land in Missouri.
The figure — “three times the size of the Lake of the Ozarks†— was cited by Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine’s campaign blasting Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the Republican nominee. Valentine has criticized Schmitt for voting as a state senator in 2013 to allow the sale of Missouri farmland to “communists in China.â€
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But CSIS, which based its report on U.S. Department of Agriculture data, last week .
“A previous version of this Critical Questions incorrectly stated that upon acquiring Smithfield Foods, WH Group (formerly Shuanghui) owned 146,000 acres of Missouri farmland,†the correction said. “This piece has been corrected to state that upon acquiring Smithfield Foods, WH Group was reported to own 146,000 acres of farmland across the United States, including approximately 42,000 acres of farmland in Missouri as of 2015.â€
Before Shuanghui acquired Smithfield Foods, Missouri banned all foreign ownership of agricultural land. That rule was changed before the purchase to allow foreign entities to own up to 1% of the state’s farmland.
Valentine’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the CSIS correction. : “Today China controls more than 146,000 acres of our farms.â€
Articles in the Post-Dispatch referencing the earlier figure have been updated and corrected.