By Oanh Nguyen
On February 17, 2025, Rep. Jennifer Balkcom filed House Bill 133 to the N.C. House of Representatives. About two months later, the bill survived its second reading with 111 votes from both Republican and Democratic representatives in favor of a policy that restricted so-called “foreign adversaries” from acquiring N.C. agricultural land.
HB 133, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, Rep. Neal Jackson, Rep. Jeff Zenger and Rep. John Bell, amends the N.C. General Statutes through an addition of Article 4, explicitly prohibiting “adversarial foreign government acquisition of agricultural land” within the state. The main reasoning behind this bill, according to Section 64-61, is to protect the state’s agricultural land from “foreign adversarial government control” so N.C. farmers may “produce a safe, abundant, and affordable supply of food”. Foreign adversarial governments are expressly prohibited from purchasing, leasing, renting or holding any interest in N.C. agricultural land and land within 75 miles of a military installation.
The bill is part of President Donald Trump’s National Farm Security Action Plan as part of Executive Order 14218, collaborating with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of its Make Agriculture Great Again initiative. The National Farm Security Action Plan aims to accomplish three goals: to promote agricultural and economic prosperity, to defend the foundations of agriculture and food, and to strengthen domestic agricultural productivity.
It begs the question: how much U.S. farmland is owned by foreign investors, and is it enough to pose a security concern? The answer can be found in data provided by the Farm Service Agency of the USDA.
Based on a report released 2024, only 3.6% of all privately held agricultural land in the U.S. is owned by foreign investors. Canadian investors possess the greatest amount of U.S. land (both agricultural and non-agricultural) at 34%, followed by the Netherlands (10%), then Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom representing a collective 18%. Chinese investors, one of the foreign adversaries identified by the National Farm Security Action Plan, owns less than 1% of U.S. agricultural land.
In N.C., only 2.7% of total agricultural land is owned by foreign investors. Brunswick County bears the greatest percentage of foreign-owned farmland with a whopping 13.5% for over 51,000 acres. Canadian investors own the greatest amount of North Carolinian land, followed by the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.
“Protecting North Carolina farmland is personal to me. I grew up on a farm and know firsthand that our farmers are the backbone of our state and our economy,” said Rep. Balkcom in a Facebook post. “HB133 [is about] stopping China and other adversarial governments from buying up NC land.”
Rep. Balkcom is the Republican representative of District 117, Henderson County, and a key sponsor of HB 133. Despite being a recent addition to the N.C. House of Representatives, having joined in 2023, her bill appears to have gained immense support within the Republican faction.
Having served District 10 since 2013, Rep. Bell is a longtime Republican and supporter of HB 133, filing its predecessor HB 463 or the N.C. Farmland and Military Protection Act in 2023.
“Allowing foreign adversaries to purchase N.C. farmland poses a serious risk to our national and food security,” said Rep. Bell in a 2023 post. “By putting a halt to these land grabs, our bill will protect our state’s most precious natural resources while further safeguarding our military installation.”
With the opening of the N.C. legislative session on April 21, 2026, HB 133 may come closer to becoming law upon a third reading with the first and second chambers. If the bill passes its third reading, its fate will be left to the decision of Gov. Josh Stein.
