It’s probably not a coincidence that Chinese-owned farmland in the U.S. is three times more likely to be right next to a military base.
April 10, 2026
Original Paper
Spatial Clustering of Foreign Agricultural Acquisitions Near U.S. Military Installations: Comparative Evidence from USDA Primary Data
SSRN · 6454202
The Takeaway
Concerns about foreign land ownership are often dismissed as conspiracy theories. This study uses primary government data to show a statistically undeniable pattern of land acquisition near sensitive defense sites that far exceeds the behavior of U.S. allies.
From the abstract
<span>Despite active federal legislation targeting foreign agricultural land purchases near U.S. military installations, no peer-reviewed study has applied formal spatial hypothesis testing to the core empirical question: does the observed proximity pattern exceed random chance, and is it specific to adversarial-nation investors? This paper addresses both questions using USDA Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) detailed holdings data for 2020 through 2024 — the federal governm