HR1713-119

What This Bill Does

The Agricultural Risk Review Act of 2025 gives the Secretary of Agriculture a formal role in foreign-investment review when agriculture is at stake. Section 2 adds the Secretary to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for covered transactions involving agricultural land, agricultural biotechnology, or the agriculture industry, including transportation, storage, and processing. Section 3 requires CFIUS, after a USDA notification of a reportable agricultural land transaction, to determine whether the transaction is a covered transaction and whether to begin a review or take other authorized action. A reportable agricultural land transaction is one the Agriculture Secretary has reason to believe is covered, based on information from or in cooperation with the intelligence community, involving agricultural land acquired by a foreign person from China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran and subject to USDA reporting under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. The country-specific requirement ends for a foreign person from a country once that country is removed from the foreign-adversaries list at 15 CFR 791.4.

Who Benefits and How

The Department of Agriculture, CFIUS member agencies, domestic farmland owners, U.S. agricultural producers, agriculture biotechnology firms, food-supply-chain security officials, rural communities, intelligence community analysts, and national-security officials benefit because agricultural land and agribusiness transactions involving China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran receive clearer federal review triggers and USDA expertise inside the CFIUS process.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Foreign agricultural investors from China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran, USDA AFIDA reporting staff, CFIUS case officers, intelligence community analysts, transaction lawyers, agriculture biotechnology buyers, grain-storage and processing deal teams, and farmland sellers must handle extra screening, notifications, national-security review decisions, information sharing, and possible delays or mitigation in agricultural land and industry transactions.

Key Provisions

• Adds the Secretary of Agriculture to CFIUS for transactions involving agricultural land, agricultural biotechnology, and the agriculture industry.
• Requires CFIUS to decide whether USDA-notified agricultural land transactions are covered transactions.
• Requires CFIUS to decide whether to initiate review or take another authorized action after USDA notice.
• Restricts the reportable-transaction trigger to foreign persons from China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran while those countries remain listed foreign adversaries.
• Links reportable transactions to Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act reporting and intelligence-community information.