This land is our land: States crack down on foreign-owned farm fields

Andy Gipson gets concerned even when American allies such as the Netherlands and Germany invest in large swaths of Mississippi’s farmland. “It just bothers me at a gut level,” he said. For Gipson, Mississippi’s commissioner of agriculture and commerce, the growing trend of foreign ownership could threaten what he views as the state’s most valuable asset: the land that grows its forests, rice and cotton. “It is our ability as a country, as a state to produce our own food, our own fiber and our own shelter,” he told Stateline. “And I think every acre that’s sold to anybody outside of this countr...