The FARM Act amends section 721 of the Defense Production Act to fold the Secretary of Agriculture into the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), broaden the set of transactions subject to review to include agriculture businesses and those using defined "agricultural products," and expressly treat agricultural systems and supply chains as part of CFIUS’s critical infrastructure and critical-technology considerations.
The bill also mandates an initial analysis within one year and annual reports thereafter from both the Secretary of Agriculture and the Government Accountability Office on foreign investments, threats to U.S. agricultural production and supply chains, and espionage techniques targeting agricultural innovation. For practitioners, the measure raises new screening risk for transactions affecting farms, processors, input suppliers, and the wider food chain and creates regulatory uncertainty because key definitions and implementation details are deferred to Committee regulations.
At a Glance
What It Does
Adds the Secretary of Agriculture to the CFIUS membership, expands the statutory scope of covered transactions to include businesses engaged in agriculture and transactions that could yield foreign control of those businesses, and designates agricultural systems and supply chains as critical infrastructure and critical technologies for review. It also requires USDA and GAO to produce an initial report within a year and annual updates on foreign influence in U.S. agriculture.
Who It Affects
Farms, processors, input manufacturers, agritech companies, foreign investors in agricultural assets, and legal/compliance teams that structure or advise on cross-border deals involving agriculture. CFIUS and USDA will also need to absorb new screening and reporting responsibilities.
Why It Matters
The change brings agricultural assets squarely into national-security screening, creating a pathway for review and mitigation of foreign acquisitions in the food and farm sector and potentially changing deal structure, valuation, and timing for cross-border investment into U.S. agriculture.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The FARM Act makes three concrete changes to the Defense Production Act’s foreign-investment review regime. First, it adds the Secretary of Agriculture to the statutory list of officials who sit on or represent agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
That membership change gives the agriculture department a formal seat at the table when the Committee decides whether a covered transaction poses national-security risks.
Second, the bill widens what CFIUS may review by inserting an explicit category for any transaction that could give foreign control of a U.S. business engaged in agriculture and that uses “agricultural products” as defined under 7 U.S.C. 451 (the Act of July 2, 1926). Critically, the amendment says the Committee may review such transactions that are proposed, pending, or completed on or after the bill’s enactment — which opens a statutory window to examine not only future deals but certain recent or in-process deals as well.Third, the measure clarifies that CFIUS’s definitions of “critical infrastructure” and “critical technologies” can include agricultural systems and supply chains, but it ties the scope to regulations the Committee will prescribe.
That means the statutory hook is added, but the precise boundaries — which crops, inputs, nodes in the value chain, or technologies are covered — will come through subsequent rulemaking and Committee guidance.Finally, the bill imposes reporting duties: the Secretary of Agriculture and the Comptroller General must each complete an analysis of foreign influence in U.S. agriculture within one year and then submit annual reports. The required topics include a catalogue of foreign investments in agriculture, analysis of how those investments could undermine production and supply chains, identification of major international threats to control or influence, and a description of espionage and theft techniques aimed at agricultural IP and strategy.
Those dual reports create two institutional perspectives — one executive and one audit/oversight — that Congress can use to shape future policy or regulations.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill statutorily adds the Secretary of Agriculture to the roster of officials listed in section 721(k)(2) of the Defense Production Act (CFIUS representation).
It amends section 721(a)(4)(A) to state the Committee may review any transaction described in the new subparagraph (B)(vi) that is proposed, pending, or completed on or after enactment, potentially exposing recent deals to review.
A new subsection (B)(vi) defines covered transactions to include any transfer, merger, acquisition, agreement, or arrangement that could result in foreign control of a U.S. business engaged in agriculture and that uses agricultural products as defined in 7 U.S.C. 451.
The bill inserts agricultural systems and supply chains into CFIUS’s statutory definitions of both ‘critical infrastructure’ and ‘critical technologies,’ but ties the operational scope to regulations prescribed by the Committee.
Within one year of enactment, and annually after that, both the Secretary of Agriculture and the Comptroller General must submit reports to Congress analyzing foreign investments, risks to production and supply chains, the largest international threats, and agriculture-related espionage techniques.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Establishes the Act’s public name: the Foreign Adversary Risk Management Act, or the FARM Act. This is purely titular but signals congressional intent to treat foreign-adversary risk in agriculture as a distinct national-security issue.
Adds USDA representation on CFIUS
Amends 50 U.S.C. 4565(k)(2) by inserting the Secretary of Agriculture into the list of agency representatives. Practically, USDA now has a formal voice in interagency screenings, access to CFIUS case files under appropriate rules, and the opportunity to push agriculture-specific mitigation measures during reviews.
Expands covered transactions to include agricultural businesses
Modifies 50 U.S.C. 4565(a)(4) to add a new catalogue of transactions that could lead to foreign control of U.S. agriculture firms, referencing the statutory definition of ‘agricultural products’ (7 U.S.C. 451). It also adds an explicit temporal trigger so CFIUS can review transactions proposed, pending, or completed on or after enactment — a provision with potential retroactive reach for deals that closed shortly before the law took effect.
Classifies agricultural supply chains as critical infrastructure and technologies
Alters the statutory definitions of ‘critical infrastructure’ and ‘critical technologies’ at 50 U.S.C. 4565(a)(5) and (a)(6)(A) to include agricultural systems and supply chains. However, the statute defers the exact contours to regulations the Committee will prescribe. That delegation means the Committee, not Congress, will decide which parts of the agriculture ecosystem (e.g., seeds, fertilizer, processing, software) count for screening and mitigation purposes.
USDA and GAO reporting on foreign influence
Requires the Secretary of Agriculture and the Comptroller General to each complete an analysis within one year and then file annual reports on foreign influence in U.S. agriculture. The reports must cover foreign investment flows, risks to production and supply chains, key international threats to control and influence, and methods foreign governments use to steal agricultural IP or price/strategy data — providing Congress two independent inputs to monitor trends and justify any follow-on rulemaking.
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Explore Agriculture in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- US national-security and trade policymakers — gain a formal mechanism and data (annual reports) to identify and respond to foreign influence in agriculture, improving their ability to craft targeted mitigation.
- Domestic agricultural firms and supply-chain managers concerned about adversary control — benefit from an added layer of screening that can block or impose mitigation on foreign acquisitions that pose security or continuity risks.
- US agricultural researchers and IP holders — may receive stronger protection if CFIUS and USDA prioritize preventing foreign access to sensitive R&D, proprietary breeding lines, or precision-agriculture data.
- Rural communities and critical-infrastructure planners — stand to gain resilience if the Committee’s regulations and mitigation measures preserve domestic production capacity and limit risky foreign control of key nodes.
Who Bears the Cost
- Foreign investors and companies — face higher transaction risk, increased scrutiny, and potential disqualification or mitigation requirements for deals involving agricultural assets, which may reduce inbound capital or change deal terms.
- US agricultural companies engaged in cross-border transactions — will incur additional legal, disclosure, and compliance costs and may see longer deal timelines if transactions trigger CFIUS review or mitigation.
- CFIUS, USDA, and GAO — must absorb new workload to carry out reviews, draft regulations, and produce annual analyses; those agencies may need additional resources and staff to meet the bill’s mandates.
- Deal advisers and compliance firms — demand for counsel, filings, and mitigation design will increase, raising transaction costs for buyers and sellers in the agriculture sector.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward: the bill increases national-security protections by subjecting agriculture to investment screening and reporting, but those protections come at the cost of reduced openness to foreign capital, greater regulatory unpredictability, and potential disruption to existing supply-chain relationships—forcing a trade-off between safeguarding critical food-system nodes and preserving investment, innovation, and efficient markets.
The bill creates a statutory expansion without specifying the operational thresholds that determine which agricultural assets or transactions will be covered; it delegates those definitional decisions to Committee regulations. That delegation is practical (allowing technical, case-by-case rules) but creates short-term uncertainty for market participants because the timing, scope, and content of the implementing regulations will shape real-world outcomes.
The provision allowing review of transactions “proposed, pending, or completed” on or after enactment raises separation-of-powers and property-rights concerns for parties to recently closed deals and could prompt litigation over whether CFIUS review in particular cases is impermissibly retroactive.
Requiring parallel annual reports from USDA and the Comptroller General gives Congress two vantage points but risks producing overlapping or inconsistent recommendations. The reports will likely rely on confidential business and research data, forcing choices about how much to declassify or publish; transparency for Congress and the public will therefore trade off against firms’ confidentiality and competitive concerns.
Finally, the expanded screening posture could chill legitimate foreign investment that finances productivity-enhancing agritech, unless the Committee calibrates mitigation narrowly and provides clear, predictable criteria.
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