Chinese-owned Syngenta sells ag land in Craighead County

A Chinese state-owned company that owned land in Craighead County has sold that land, according to the Craighead County Assessor’s Office. Syngenta Seeds LLC sold more than 150 acres to Moore Legacy Farm LLC on May 15.

The deal was for $760,000.

Syngenta had to sell the land after Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin enforced a new state law in the fall of 2023 that forbids several countries, including China, from owning land in the state.

The company was the first target of the attorney general enforcing the state law. Not only was the company ordered to divest itself from the acres, it was ordered to pay a $280,000 fine due to the fact it did not report that it was a foreign-owned company to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

“Because Syngenta is foreign owned – ultimately by the Chinese Communist Party – it was required to report its ownership of agricultural land to the Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. It failed to timely do so – filing the report well after the deadline,” Griffin said at the time.

The land was used to develop seed technology and to conduct research, according to Syngenta.

Chinese corporations funnel research and information back to the country’s government, Gov. Sarah Sanders previously said. American technology is stolen in this process, and it gives them and other countries a better understanding of how to attack our farms if they need too, she added.

China has multiple State Owned Enterprises, or SOE’s. One of those SOE’s, ChemChina, is the parent company of Syngenta. According to Syngenta’s website, it’s an ag-tech company that employs 30,000 with holdings in 90 different countries. Its focuses include seed development, crop protection, biofuels and other agriculture-related endeavors.

In 2022, ChemChina was added to the U.S. Department of Defense’s list of Chinese-controlled “military companies” that either directly or indirectly work at the behest of the country’s military.