Arkansas, Under Threat of National Security, Forces Chinese Owned Farm Out

Calling it a “threat to our national security and to our great farmers,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, along with state Attorney General Tim Griffin, has ordered the agtech company Syngenta to sell 160 acres of farmland in the state within two years because it is a Chinese-owned company.

Griffin announced last week that Syngenta Seeds, LLC, a company that makes genetically modified corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetable and sunflower seeds, owns about 160 acres of farmland in Craighead County through a subsidiary, Northrup King Seed Co.

Grffin is also imposing a $280,000 civil penalty on the company, which is 25% of the land’s value, for failing to timely disclose its ownership, according to a news release.

“I thank Secretary Wes Ward and the Department of Agriculture for their help in obtaining information to assist my office in determining the ultimate foreign owners of this land in Craighead County,” Griffin stated. “It is this kind of teamwork across state government that will help us all continue to protect the interests of Arkansans for generations to come.”

In May 2017, China National Chemical Corporation, also known as ChemChina, acquired 80.7% of the company’s shares according to a Syngenta news release.

The company lists its legal addresses in Wilmington, Del., and Basel, Switzerland, according to its federal disclosure, saying “the landowner entity” changed from Switzerland to China in 2017.

Syngenta was acquired that year for $43 billion by ChemChina and was folded into Sinochem Holdings Corp four years later. Syngenta is currently arranging for an initial public offering in Shanghai.

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense listed ChemChina as a Chinese Military Company that operates in the United States.

Arkansas’ action against Syngenta is the first such case taken since a newly passed state law took effect. Act 636 prohibits certain “prohibited foreign-party-controlled business” from owning agriculture land in Arkansas. Countries that are banned from owning farm land in the state are listed under the federal International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which includes China.

Chinese government-owned entities fall under the law because China is subject to a federal arms export controls known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

“This is about where your loyalties lie,” Sanders said.

The company owns about 1,500 acres of U.S. agricultural land that is used for “research, development and regulatory trials on products,” and Arkansas is the first state seeking to evict it.

“Seeds are technology,” Sanders said. “Chinese-state owned corporations filter that technology back to their homeland, stealing American research and telling our enemies how to target American farms. That is a clear threat to our national security and to our great farmers.”

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