Hagstrom Report | SOURCE: THE FENCE POST
The Agriculture Department needs to collect, track, and better share data on foreign farmland ownership, but needs more money from Congress to do that, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday.
GAO complained that USDA annually compiles its data from paper forms filed with headquarters or county offices, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said that to make the system more accurate counties across the country would need to develop detailed systems to report to USDA.