SOIL Act of 2025
Key claim: The SOIL Act of 2025 would require CFIUS to review agricultural-land investments by persons from nonmarket or national-security-risk countries, prohibit federal agricultural assistance for such holdings, and expand USDA foreign landholding disclosure to leases longer than five years with annual public reporting emphasizing China and Russia.
Abstract
(S1012 · 119th Congress) Security and Oversight for International Landholdings Act of 2025 or the SOIL Act of 2025 This bill establishes and expands requirements for reviewing and disclosing transactions regarding foreign investments in agricultural land. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) must review certain investments in agricultural land held by a person (i.e., individual or entity) that is a national of, or subject to the jurisdiction of, a country (1) designated as a nonmarket economy, or (2) identified as posing a risk to the national security of the United States. Under current law, CFIUS reviews the national security implications of certain foreign investments in U.S. businesses or real estate, including critical infrastructure or technologies. CFIUS must also review certain real estate acquisitions or transfers of an interest, other than a security, for nonresidential properties that are located within 50 miles of a military installation. The bill also prohibits federal assistance, including subsidies, from being provided to a person for an agricultural real estate holding which is owned by any of the foreign persons specified above. The bill requires any foreign person who enters into a leasing agreement for agricultural land that is longer than five years to report the lease to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Current requirements only apply to agriculture land acquired or transferred. Further, USDA must prepare and make publicly available an annual report describing agricultural land holdings by foreign persons, including specific information related to foreign persons from China and Russia. Latest action (2025-03-12): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Why this matters
The SOIL Act sits at the intersection of two established trade/investment control frameworks — CFIUS foreign-investment review and AFIDA foreign-land disclosure — and would extend both specifically to agricultural land held by nonmarket or national-security-risk countries. If enacted, foreign investors from named jurisdictions (especially China and Russia) would face new prospective review, mandatory public disclosure of long-term leases, and loss of eligibility for federal farm programs, marking a continued congressional trend toward treating farmland as national-security infrastructure.