As President Biden cautions about food shortages, the farm and rural news outlet Agri-Pulse warns of a federal report detailing Communist China’s efforts to “purchase, and even steal, agricultural assets,” putting an ideological foe between our citizens and their next meals. 

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent government agency in Washington, finds that like the Soviet Union before it, China struggles to feed its people, and looks to America — the global leader in the field — to fill the gap.

America, the report found, is “often a target of China’s efforts to strengthen its agriculture sector and food security, sometimes through illicit means,” such as theft of genetically modified crops and livestock, including chickens, pigs, and cows.

In 2016, a Communist Chinese agent was caught stealing seeds from an Iowa cornfield. This espionage not only costs American companies. It also gives Beijing genetic codes, enabling them to engineer diseases to decimate heartland fields, chicken coops, and hog pens.

“The Chinese Communist Party,” Agri-Pulse writes, “could also gain leverage over U.S. supply chains if companies with ties to the party purchase or merge with U.S. companies along the supply chain.”

This would “create economic distortions in the U.S. agriculture market should China have more leverage over U.S. suppliers….” The report also raises concerns over the accuracy of information on foreign land purchases the USDA is supposed to monitor, noting the ease with which the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act is circumvented.

Chinese firms, the report says, “could repurpose the purchased land with little concern of repercussions from USDA due to the lack of enforcement measures in place.” As we have seen with the baby formula famine, even small disruptions can be catastrophic. 

Consider Smithfield Foods Inc., the largest pork producer in the United States. A company backed by the Chinese government purchased it in 2013, thus gaining control over that key food supply and the company’s “advanced hog genetics and valuable technology.”

In the years since, the report says, pork prices have been “particularly volatile,” with China prioritizing its domestic supplies over America’s. “The CCP,” the report continues, “may have undue leverage over U.S. supply chains if further consolidations and Chinese purchases of U.S. agribusinesses take place.”

The Biden administration has been slow to recognize the threat Beijing poses. Even when the Chinese army tested a new hypersonic missile — a military threat — the White House was nonplussed.

“We welcome stiff competition,” the press secretary, Jennifer Psaki, said at the time, “but do not want that competition to veer into conflict.” The trouble is that adversaries often bring conflict regardless of whether we want it.

So far, the Biden administration has at least kept in place President Trump’s tariffs meant to play hardball with Beijing. “The U.S. is attempting to politicize and weaponize economic affairs,” the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said, “and even treat the matter ideologically.”  

He added: “Such a practice violates basic norms of economics. It is putting shackles on the free market.” 

When communists lecture us on the marvels of capitalism, you can hear Milton Friedman laughing from his grave.

What other way is there to deal with a foe opposed to our way of life? We are in a struggle over ideology, and we shouldn’t bet the farm on an economic system that leads to famines everywhere it’s tried.

To safeguard our food supply, the Commission’s report urges that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the USDA, and the intelligence community collaborate in identifying risks to our national security.

Food supply has always been a theater in warfare, from the Continental Army burning Loyalist crops to the Union blockading Confederate ports and the Royal Navy starving Germany into submission during World War I.

Allowing a communist adversary to buy, erode, and exploit American farms is a sure way to worsen the looming food crisis and hands Beijing powerful leverage should it move on the free Chinese government on Taiwan. Forewarned is forearmed.

Agricultural reports may not be as sexy as missiles, but an army marches on its stomach, and so do civilians. That means it’s not xenophobia to hold the means of food production in American hands. It’s just keeping the fox out of the hen house.