USDA Ties Food Security to National Defense
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What You Need To Know
On Tuesday, 08 July 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the National Farm Security Action Plan, which positions American agriculture as a critical national security priority and addresses threats from foreign adversaries to safeguard U.S. farmland, food supply, and agricultural infrastructure.
The 12-page document outlines (link opens in our online library) several pillars, or action areas, intended to counter foreign influence, enhance resilience, and protect the nation's agricultural assets.
Under the Secure and Protect American Farmland pillar, the plan prioritizes banning foreign adversaries, notably Chinese nationals, from purchasing or controlling U.S. farmland, citing national security risks from over 265,000 acres owned by Chinese entities, often near military bases. Presidential authorities will be used to reclaim much of this land.
The plan also proposes reforms to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, including an online portal for reporting non-compliance, tougher penalties, and transparency via a searchable foreign land ownership map.
Ukraine’s recent surprise drone attack [archive] on Russian airfields underscores the vulnerabilities the new plan seeks to address.
In this attack, Ukraine smuggled 117 first-person-view drones into Russia, concealed in wooden containers on trucks, and remotely launched them near airbases, destroying or damaging up to 20 Russian warplanes, including strategic bombers.
The operation highlights the risk of covertly introduced threats, like drones in shipping containers, which could target U.S. agricultural or military assets.
Another pillar in the National Farm Security Action Plan, titled Safeguard Plant and Animal Health, strengthens biosecurity to counter agroterrorism threats like smuggled pathogens, such as the June 2025 case involving two Chinese nationals [archive] who were arrested for attempting to bring a toxic, crop-damaging-fungus, Fusarium graminearum, into the U.S. through Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The case, centered on their supposed attempt to conduct research at the University of Michigan, has raised national security concerns due to the fungus’s classification as a “potential agroterrorism weapon.”
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