Government officials say adversaries’ U.S. farmland ownership can imperil national security, while China has dismissed the concerns.

The USDA released a plan to counter foreign threats to American farmland. It will ban Chinese nationals from obtaining U.S. agricultural land.

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday said the administration would work with state and local governments to take “swift legislative and executive action to ban the purchase of American farmland by Chinese nationals and other foreign adversaries”.