Landownership bill clears House
The state House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill stripped of its original intent of banning foreign ownership of farmland.
Senate Bill 312, by Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, and Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Springdale, now only would require that such ownership be reported to the state agriculture secretary, mirroring federal law requiring such registration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The amended bill also would allow the state attorney general's office to seek civil penalties for failure to register.
SB312 originally would have banned all foreign ownership of cropland, regardless of country, and then was amended to include timberland. Another amendment set a ban only for countries on certain international "watch" lists, such as for terrorism or illegal arms sales. That version failed two weeks ago in the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development.
Approved on a 90-0 vote, SB312 returns to the Senate for concurrence in the House amendments.
A critic on the House committee, Rep. Joe Jett, R-Success, said the original bill could jeopardize the sale of Arkansas farm products to China.
Of the state's 28.1 million acres defined as agricultural land, foreign interests owned 1.1 million acres, or 3.9%, as of December 2019, the most recent figures available. Some 775,000 acres are forestland.
-- Stephen Steed
Milk production unchanged in 1Q
Milk production in Arkansas was unchanged for the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For the January through March quarter, Arkansas cows produced 18 million pounds of milk, the same as in the same quarter in 2020 but up 29% when compared with the previous quarter, according to a recent news release. A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 pounds. The number of cows on dairy farms was unchanged at 5,000 head.
Dairies across the nation produced 56.7 billion pounds of milk for the first quarter of 2021, up 1% from the January through March period of 2020. The number of milk cows in the United States during the first quarter of 2021 stood at 9.46 million, up 29,000 when compared with the previous quarter.
-- John Magsam
State index closes at 597.64, up 0.66
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Thursday at 597.64, up 0.66.
"Stocks retreated in afternoon trading after reports that the Biden administration was considering an increase to the capital gains tax rate as the energy and materials sectors underperformed," said Leon Lants, managing director at Stephens Inc.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.