Arkansas tells Chinese-owned company to sell farmland

On Tuesday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Syngenta had to give up 160 acres of farmland under a new state law limiting foreign entities’ ownership of farmland. She said the Defense Department had put Syngenta’s Chinese state-owned parent company, ChemChina, on a list of companies that threatened U.S. national security. Huckabee said the company used the land to research seed technology—which she said the company gave back to China—to help it potentially target American farms.

Is this something a lot of states are doing? Roughly half of U.S. states have passed laws limiting foreign companies and entities from owning farmland within their borders. According to the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas, Arkansas is one of a dozen states that passed such laws within the last year.

Dig deeper: Read John Dawson’s report in WORLD Magazine about the state of religion behind the walls of China.