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Economy

Gov. Kristi Noem: Food Insecurity - China Buying Millions of Acres of Ag Land, Food Processing Biz

2022-06-07

[FoxNews] We need to ensure that America’s food can’t be held hostage by anyone

I first drove the semi on my family’s farm when I was around 12 years old. My dad and I were leaving the field with a full load of corn, when he told me to take the wheel, giving his only advice before climbing down: "Make your corners wide."

From my family’s farm to the State Committee for the USDA Farm Service Agency to the House Agriculture Committee, I have worked in agriculture in some capacity since I could walk. Now as South Dakota’s governor, I serve alongside a third-generation cattle rancher, Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden. We are the only farmer-rancher pair to lead a state’s executive branch, and we are both deeply concerned: America’s food supply system is at risk.

To keep our food supply consistent and affordable for all families, it is essential that no one else controls it. When another nation controls your food, it controls you. Our leaders recognized this threat and put in place risk management tools and programs to ensure Americans would never go hungry because of a foreign entity’s influence.

Coming at a time of shortages in such everyday essentials as fuel, semiconductors, and even baby formula, the American people have every right to be skeptical and to demand answers about the incidents shutting down food facilities. Americans deserve to have their leaders treat disruptions in our food system – from foreign interference to fires to shortages – with concern.

Unfortunately, they’ve gotten the exact opposite from the Biden administration. U.S. AID Administrator Samantha Power even seemed to celebrate fertilizer shortages that will force farmers to "hasten transitions" to "natural solutions, like manure and compost." Shockingly, she also said the quiet part out loud: "Never let a crisis go to waste."

While Americans have awakened to China’s military expansion and its grab for critical minerals worldwide, we have not yet realized our strategic vulnerability when it comes to our nation’s food supply.

The beef industry offers a telling example: Over time, the beef processing industry has consolidated into four mega-packers that now control 85 percent of America’s beef supply. That’s bad for competition and leads to higher prices at the grocery store. But now consider that two of these companies are based out of Brazil, and that one of them is JBS Foods. When JBS was hacked last May, 20 percent of America’s beef supply went offline overnight. That’s a strategic vulnerability that shouldn’t happen, but it did, and it will again if we don’t act to fix it.

But for years now, foreign countries have been investing in our food supply chain, buying up the chemical and fertilizer companies that make American agriculture possible. Purchasing processing facilities, they have introduced vulnerability into the food supply chains Americans rely on to eat. Today, China is buying up millions of acres of land across the United States, following the same blueprint they have used in other countries for years.

Unfortunately, they’ve gotten the exact opposite from the Biden administration. U.S. AID Administrator Samantha Power even seemed to celebrate fertilizer shortages that will force farmers to "hasten transitions" to "natural solutions, like manure and compost." Shockingly, she also said the quiet part out loud: "Never let a crisis go to waste."

Posted by:NoMoreBS

#13 The Chinese already own 1/3 of the pork processing plants in the US.

Smithfield Foods, Inc., is a pork producer and food-processing company based in Smithfield, Virginia, in the United States, and a wholly owned subsidiary of WH Group of China.

Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed 2022-06-07 20:58

#12 I suspect if we had a major food crisis chinese farmland would suddenly become US property.

Posted by: ruprecht 2022-06-07 20:34

#11 I remember when a rumor was going around that McDonalds was using ground earthworms in their burgers. A corporate VP came out and showed that ground earthworms are more expensive than ground beef.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 11:16

#10 The Beyond Meat Burgers will be a template study. Cricket bacon or something.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2022-06-07 11:08

#9 So they will be selling bugs soon.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 10:49

#8 KFC is a Yum! Foods product, like P3do Hut and Caca Bell. The policies they support also make it so their food can't get smaller, so advertising.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2022-06-07 10:39

#7 What's ozzie for fart, mate?

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 09:24

#6 KFC Australia forced to swap lettuce for cabbage

Posted by: Skidmark 2022-06-07 09:23

#5 Bethlehem Steel, once one of the largest steel producers in the world, now just a logo on a coffee mug.

Posted by: Glenmore 2022-06-07 08:46

#4 "Vertical integration is the future!" - Bethlehem Steel CEO.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-06-07 08:24

#3 the beef processing industry has consolidated into four mega-packers

Gee, kinda like the four baby formula makers.

Posted by: Skidmark 2022-06-07 08:22

#2 /\ Behold systematic governmental betrayal. Needed a second example? Note the crisis at our Southern border.

Posted by: Besoeker 2022-06-07 02:50

#1 We cannot buy China farmland, so why should China be able to buy our farmland?

Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2022-06-07 01:48

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