WED AM News: Baldwin warns of foreign investors buying U.S. farmland; Judge rejects legal challenge to large farm regulations

January 31, 2024

— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin is warning that foreign investors buying U.S. farmland pose a threat to local economies, food supplies and national security as she backs a bill to expand oversight of such purchases.

The Madison Dem and a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers yesterday announced the introduction of the AFIDA Improvements Act of 2024, building on the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978. It has a number of provisions that would overhaul aspects of the USDA’s process for tracking foreign investments.

In a statement on the bill, Baldwin said Wisconsin’s farmland is “the lifeblood of our rural communities” and must be protected for generations to come.

“Our bipartisan bill will help ensure Americans know exactly who is buying American agricultural land and the potential risks it poses,” she said.

Foreign investors owned 536,511 acres of agricultural land in Wisconsin as of December 2021, according to a USDA report. That represents 2.1% of the nearly 26 million acres of privately held agricultural land in the state.

Between December 2020 and December 2021, Wisconsin’s total for foreign-owned land rose by 34,460 acres.

The report also includes figures for total agricultural and non-ag land holdings by foreign investors, showing nearly 85,000 acres in Wisconsin are owned by those hailing from Canada. That figure is about 5,000 acres for the Netherlands, 3,000 acres for Italy, 16,000 for the United Kingdom, 12,000 for Germany and about 430,000 for all other countries of origin.

At the national level, foreign investors owned about 40.8 million acres of U.S. farmland in 2021, the report shows. Baldwin’s release notes foreign ownership of U.S. farmland had been rising by 0.8 million acres per year on average between 2009 and 2015, but that has jumped to 2.9 million acres per year since 2017.

Between 2010 and 2021, Chinese buyers upped their ownership of U.S. farmland from about 14,000 acres to more than 380,000 acres, the release shows.

Baldwin’s announcement says the bill was prompted by a recent Government Accountability Office report showing “alarming gaps” in the USDA’s foreign investments oversight.

Among other changes, the legislation would direct the USDA to modernize a handbook for officials to collect AFIDA data that was last updated in 2006, “better leverage” data to identify people who haven’t filed foreign investments as required under federal law, and require reporting on minority stake foreign ownership in ag land.

See more details in the release.

— A Calumet County judge has rejected a legal challenge by dairy groups targeting permit regulations for large farms, finding state law gives DNR “broad authority” and the regulations don’t conflict with federal law.

Judge Carey Reed in his oral ruling cited a 2001 case by Maple Leaf Farms, a duck farm, arguing DNR had no authority to regulate the farm’s landspreading of manure. The court in that case upheld DNR authority to regulate the landspreading of manure under the state Wisconsin Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit program.

“I am going to find that … the enabling statutes provide the department that broad authority that the authority does not conflict with the federal statutes, does not violate the uniformity rule, that therefore the department’s promulgation of these permitting requirements does not exceed their authority, as I indicated, and they are enforceable,” Reed said.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce filed the lawsuit in May on behalf of Venture Dairy Cooperative and Wisconsin Dairy Alliance, arguing the DNR can’t require concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, to acquire wastewater permits before they discharge a pollutant to navigable waters.

Reed rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the uniformity requirement, a provision in state law requiring DNR rules to comply with but not exceed federal law, prohibits DNR from enforcing the regulations.

Assistant AG Gabe Johnson-Karp on behalf of DNR argued the uniformity provision doesn’t apply to the case because the regulations in question apply to groundwater, which the federal government doesn’t regulate.

“If the permitting rule relates to groundwater discharges, then their claims fail. And the rule as found in the rulemaking record absolutely relates to groundwater discharges,” he said.

WMC attorney Scott Rosenow argued the regulations do not apply to groundwater.

“The permitting requirement doesn’t even use the word groundwater anywhere,” Rosenow said.

Venture Dairy Cooperative Executive Director Kim Bremmer told WisPolitics the plaintiffs plan to meet with their boards to discuss the possibility of an appeal.

Meanwhile, environmental groups yesterday hailed the ruling. Attorney Evan Feinauer of Clean Wisconsin, an intervenor in the suit, emphasized the importance of the ruling in a statement.

“These large operations can produce as much waste as a small city, and the state must be able to monitor and control how, where, and in what quantities manure is stored and spread on the landscape,” Feinauer said. “That’s why for nearly 40 years, the DNR has required large CAFOs to have permits to limit this dangerous pollution. Allowing large dairies to sidestep oversight would have been catastrophic for water protection in our state.”

— StartingBlock Madison is launching the Wisconsin HardTech Accelerator, a program designed for entrepreneurs in the agriculture, food and beverage and manufacturing sectors.

“We are thrilled to launch this accelerator program, specifically catering to the growing hardtech sectors in Wisconsin,” StartingBlock CEO Scott Mosley said in a statement. “Our aim is to bridge the gap between groundbreaking ideas and market success, providing a robust platform for startups in agriculture, food and beverage, and manufacturing to thrive.”

The 16-week program will start June 22 and end Oct. 3, according to a release. Applicants will receive expert guidance and mentorship, customized training funding opportunities and peer learning and collaboration.

Applications can be submitted online between April 1 and June 5.

See more at Madison Startups.

— A Milwaukee-based tech firm called 7Rivers has announced a new partnership with New Resources Consulting focused on serving the “rapidly growing” AI market.

7Rivers launched in September under the leadership of Paul Stillmank, a successful entrepreneur whose earlier venture, 7Summits, was acquired in 2021 by IBM.

In a statement yesterday, Stillmank said the new partnership with Milwaukee-based NRC will offer more services and expertise to clients.

“We are entering a new age of business possibilities and this partnership allows us to deliver more value to the market faster with 7Rivers’ focus on data modernization, AI enablement, and data-native applications, combined with NRC’s expertise in managed services, enterprise software solutions, application development, and project management,” he said.

New Resources Consulting is the largest locally owned IT consulting firm in Wisconsin, according to the company’s Linkedin page. NRC President and CEO Mark Grosskopf, who recently joined the board of directors for 7Rivers, previously invested in Stillmank’s earlier venture, 7Summits.

“This collaboration promises innovative, data-driven solutions tailored to specific client needs,” Grosskopf said.

Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.

See the release.

— Dem lawmakers have circulated bills targeting smoking and vaping in Wisconsin, including legislation providing $2 million for a youth prevention campaign.

Reps. Jill Billings of La Crosse and Robyn Vining of Wauwatosa recently sent co-sponsorship memos on the bills to other lawmakers. In one, they note efforts to reduce cigarette smoking among young people in recent decades have “largely been successful.” But about 10% of high school students and 5% of middle school students report using e-cigarettes, according to an FDA survey from late last year.

“The Youth Vaping Prevention Package will build upon and bolster ongoing efforts to prevent youth exposure to health risks of vaping,” Billings and Vining wrote.

One bill would provide $2 million in public health campaign funds, supporting efforts by the state Department of Health Services to address youth vaping. Funding would also go to local organizations working toward the same goal.

The lawmakers argue many young people who “would never consider” smoking cigarettes believe that vaping is a safe alternative.

“Unfortunately, e-cigarettes contain dangerous and cancer-causing chemicals, in addition to alarming amounts of nicotine that can make e-cigarettes just as addictive as regular cigarettes,” they wrote. “Research shows that teens who use e-cigarettes are three times as likely to become cigarette smokers later in life.”

Another bill would add electronic smoking devices — such as e-cigarettes or vapes — and marijuana to the state’s existing indoor smoking ban, passed in 2009 to bar the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products in public places. And a third bill would prohibit vaping on public and private school property.

“While the long-term effects of e-cigarettes are still unknown, exposure to chemicals found in e-cigarettes and their aerosols can be especially problematic to children’s health and development,” the lawmakers wrote in the third memo.

Top headlines from the Health Care Report…

— The dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Robert Golden, will be stepping down.

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