HR1713-119

What This Bill Does

The Agricultural Risk Review Act of 2025 would amend the Defense Production Act to make the Secretary of Agriculture a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, for covered transactions involving agricultural land, agricultural biotechnology or the agricultural industry, including transportation, storage and processing. It does not make USDA a member for every unrelated transaction. USDA already participates in agricultural cases under case-by-case authority and appropriations provisions, including section 739 of Public Law 119-37. The bill would place the agricultural membership requirement directly in the standing CFIUS statute, without the existing appropriations provision's express Chairperson-coordination qualifier.

After a USDA notification about a qualifying agricultural-land transaction, CFIUS would have to determine whether it is a covered transaction and, if so, whether to start a review or take another action already authorized by law. The referral category has three cumulative conditions: USDA has an intelligence-informed reason to believe the transaction is covered; a foreign person from China, North Korea, Russia or Iran is acquiring an agricultural-land interest; and the transaction is subject to the existing Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act reporting requirement. The special requirement ends separately for each country if it is removed from the cited federal foreign-adversary list.

Who Benefits and How

The Department of Agriculture gains a firmer statutory role in agricultural investment decisions. CFIUS gains a required decision point for qualifying USDA referrals, potentially reducing the risk that a security-sensitive land acquisition goes unexamined. U.S. residents and agricultural communities could benefit from better assessment of national-security risks to land, biotechnology and food-production infrastructure, but those gains depend on the facts and subsequent decisions in individual transactions. The bill does not provide financial aid to farmers, guarantee higher land prices or make all foreign agricultural investment harmful.

Who Bears the Burden and How

CFIUS member agencies must evaluate the qualifying referrals, and the Department of Agriculture must support its specified membership role. In-scope foreign agricultural land purchasers from the four named countries may face additional scrutiny, delay or later restrictions under existing CFIUS powers; American landowners transacting with them may face corresponding uncertainty. The text does not automatically block purchases, require CFIUS to conduct a full review after every referral, or treat all persons of a particular ancestry as covered foreign persons. It does not expand CFIUS jurisdiction to all farmland purchases or impose a new universal private filing requirement. USDA's intelligence-informed referral condition is not itself a new mandate for intelligence agencies to collect information. Existing AFIDA reporting remains the eligibility trigger rather than a new reporting program.

Key Provisions

• Adds express USDA membership to the standing CFIUS statute for covered agricultural-land, biotechnology and industry transactions; membership is not limited to the four countries named in the land-referral section.
• Requires a CFIUS jurisdiction determination after USDA notification of a qualifying land transaction, followed by a decision whether to review or take another authorized action if it is covered.
• Requires all three referral conditions: intelligence-informed USDA concern about existing jurisdiction, acquisition by a foreign person from one of four named countries, and existing AFIDA reporting coverage.
• Limits the duration of the special referral-decision requirements country by country to the time before removal from the foreign-adversary list at 15 CFR 791.4; USDA's general agricultural membership does not share that sunset.
• Creates no automatic foreign-land ownership ban, blanket CFIUS jurisdiction expansion, new grant appropriation, or bill-specific decision deadline.