Not My Land!

Not My Land!!

Not only are the Chinese producing dangerous and life taking viruses (also known as COVID) but now they are buying up farmland in the Dakotas.  Read where they have already purchased 325,000 acres in 2020 more than 25 times the 14,000 owned in 2010. So, what’s the big deal? 

Well, for one, I don’t want the Chinese, who are sworn enemies of the US, invading our space on the pretense of developing this property for energy use. These parcels just “happen” to be adjacent to sensitive to U.S. military sites!! 

How did this happen?  How did the Chinese get these properties in the first place? 
Who owned the land?  I can imagine the amount paid to the owners who apparently saw nothing wrong in accepting huge sums to have the Chinese owning valuable land in the U.S.   I have had some experience in dealing with foreign entities who are interested in buying up U.S. properties.    

My father bought 200 acres of wooded land next to the Mississippi River.  He called it the “bottom land.”  It wasn’t good for farming, as in central Illinois, but was a forested area with all sorts of lovely walnut trees, birch trees but mainly Christmas type pine trees.  After my father passed away, he left the “bottom” land to me.  Since I had married and moved away, my good mother had to maintain the property, by making fire breaks every so many feet and keeping up with the undergrowth.  I was compensated for doing this by the state of Illinois.  They paid me a nice sum every year to maintain this property.  This was to be considered an open space by the state.  I was still the owner and had every right to sell it even though they had been paying me to maintain it as a forest reserve.

One summer, when I was visiting my mother back in Illinois, we received a call from some corporation in Chicago.  They offered to buy the property for a goodly sum (at least in those days!).  Who were these people who wanted to buy this land and what were going to do with the property and all the trees which the state of Illinois had paid me to maintain?  Well, after some inquiry I found this cooperation was owned by some Chinese development company. They were going to remove the trees and build a residential area close to the river.  Big plans for making this into a model community! 

I considered their offer but at the same time I respected the fact that the state of Illinois had been paying me to maintain this as a forest reserve.  I  decided to contact the Department of Agriculture first and see if they would buy this property.  Indeed they did and for the same price as the Chinese wanted to pay me.  I could have bargained with the Chinese for more money, but doing that went against my principles of keeping American land in American hands.

 It was my one small contribution and I know now it was the right and moral thing to do.

I don’t know about you but it’s time to set some ground rules. 

No Germans, English, Japanese, Arabs, Chinese buying property in the US. It’s our own prized possession.  There is only so much available and tillable farmland in the America’s heartland.  Let’s keep it for us and not for them!