A Chinese Communist Party member is the second-largest foreign owner of U.S. farmland, with an $85 million Oregon purchase made secretly nine years ago.
Chen Tianqiao bought nearly 200,000 acres of farmland in the Bull Springs Sky Line Forest in 2015 at about $430 an acre. However, his purchase of the acreage does not appear in government records of land ownership by foreign investors.
The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires foreign investors to report any new interest in American agricultural land to the Department of Agriculture within 90 days of the transaction. So far, USDA Director Thomas J. Vilsack has refused to explain.
Chen trails only Canada’s Irving family in foreign ownership on the list, who own 1.2 million acres of Maine timberland.
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