S. 845 — Farmland Security Act of 2025

This section amends the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA), which requires foreign persons to report their acquisitions, transfers, or holdings of U.S. agricultural land to the Secretary of Agriculture, by making the following changes: (1) increasing the maximum civil penalty for violations by foreign-owned shell corporations (i.e., legal entities with no or nominal operations) to 100 percent of the agricultural land's fair market value on the date of assessment (from 25 percent), unless the violation is remedied within 60 days of the Secretary's notice; (2) requiring the Secretary to conduct an annual compliance audit of at least 10 percent of reports submitted under AFIDA and to provide annual training to state and county personnel on identifying agricultural land for which no report was filed; (3) directing the Secretary to submit to Congress, beginning 180 days after enactment and annually thereafter, a report on research into foreign agricultural leasing activities (including impacts on family farms, rural communities, and the domestic food supply), trends in purchases of agricultural land by foreign-owned shell corporations, and foreign ownership of agricultural production capacity and participation in agricultural economic activity; and (4) authorizing appropriations of $2 million annually for FY2025 through FY2030 to carry out AFIDA.