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Home HOME-0008 · Standing topic · Exhibit MC-0008 · Exhibit version 1.0 draft · Home version 1.0
Jurisdiction and deciding body: Not stated in the record
Instrument: Not stated in the record
Decision date: Not stated in the record. Lifecycle stage: Open file.
Validation: Last validated October 28, 2026. Next review date: Not stated in the record.
Filed under: Money, land, and taxes. Entered by the Clerk. Stamped: record checked, October 28, 2026.
Family farms have been lost for years to Chinese buyers under Presidents Obama and Biden, to NAFTA under President George W. Bush, to Bill Gates buying hundreds of thousands of acres, and to subsidies offered in Michigan for data centers, solar, and wind, and Michigan millages and property taxes are taking homes, farms, businesses, and generational wealth, while President Trump has provided financial relief to farmers.
Stated in its common form. This claim circulates in many wordings, and it is rephrased here so that no one person's exact words are singled out.
Farm numbers have fallen mainly through long consolidation, the outside buyers named hold a small share of United States farmland, and primary homes and qualified farmland do not pay the school operating levy discussed in this argument.
Stated in its common form. This claim circulates in many wordings, and it is rephrased here so that no one person's exact words are singled out.
What follows is the record underneath both claims.
The record, in brief: The United States had 1.9 million farms in 2022, and the count has been falling for decades through consolidation into larger operations. The buyers and the tax named in the first claim are real subjects, and the figures for their size, their dates, and who pays the levy are in the public record.
What follows from the record: The Census of Agriculture counted 1,900,487 farms in the United States in 2022, down 10 percent from 2,109,303 in 2012, and family owned and operated farms were 95 percent of all farms and operated 84 percent of the land in farms. Michigan counted 45,581 farms in 2022, down 4.3 percent from 2017. Chinese-linked investors held 247,659 acres at the end of 2024, less than 1 percent of all foreign held agricultural land, and the farmland held by the largest reported private holder, at about 270,000 acres, is about 0.03 percent of total United States farmland. Primary residences and qualified agricultural property are exempt from the 18 mills of local school operating tax and pay $0 toward that levy. Unpaid property taxes can move through forfeiture to foreclosure on a timeline of about three years, and the owner is entitled to the surplus proceeds from a tax sale after the tax debt is paid.
What does not follow from the record: The record does not show that a small national ownership share answers any single local case, because a national percentage does not measure concentration in one county or the effect of one large sale on one community. The record does not show that exemption from the one levy in this argument is exemption from property tax altogether, because homes and farms still pay other millages and the 6 mill State Education Tax, and a total unpaid bill can still reach foreclosure. The record does not verify, as stated, the part of the circulating claim naming a solar or wind subsidy program, because the claim as circulated names no program, amount, or farm.
The next data point that could change the record: The next Census of Agriculture farm counts and the next Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act report of foreign held agricultural land, the two series the exhibit's farm and holdings figures come from. Expected date: Not stated in the record.
No projection filed. No past case in the record is close enough to this subject to project from.
What is true in the Exhibit 1: farm numbers are falling in Michigan and nationally, and property can be lost through tax foreclosure after years of nonpayment.
What is true in the Exhibit 2: the outside buyers named hold a small national share, and the levy at issue does not charge primary homes or qualified farmland.
Last validated October 28, 2026. Filed updates: 0. Latest: none filed.
Both claims are stated in their common form. Each circulates in many wordings, and each is rephrased here accurately and in the same way, so that no one person's exact words are singled out. The first claim holds that family farms are being lost to foreign and large buyers and to trade agreements, that state incentives favor data centers and renewable energy over farms, that property taxes take homes and farms, that a tax collected under threat of loss is extortion, and that farm relief under President Trump is the contrasting policy. The second claim holds that farm loss is mainly a long consolidation, that the named buyers account for a small share of the land, and that the specific school levy in this argument falls on other property.
The question the record can settle: the farm counts and their direction, the recorded foreign and individual holdings and their shares, the dates of the trade agreement named in the argument, who is exempt from the 18 mill school operating levy, and what happens to property and to sale proceeds after years of unpaid tax, because each is recorded in a census, a federal disclosure report, a statute, a court decision, or a dated announcement named in the exhibit.
The question the record cannot settle: how much outside ownership a community should accept, whether schools and local services should be funded by a tax on property that can end in foreclosure, and whether data center and clean energy incentives are worth their cost in land, energy, and forgone revenue. Those ask what should be done, which is a question of values and policy.
The definitions that bound the topic, each from a named authority already in the exhibit:
One premise under the first claim is that a falling farm count means the land is passing to the named buyers. A second premise is that any tax collected under threat of foreclosure is illegitimate, even when voters approved it. One premise under the second claim is that a small national share settles the concern about outside ownership. Neither premise is a figure. The figures are below, and the ownership and tax questions they leave open are stated in section 8.
The first claim holds on the direction of farm numbers, because the count fell in Michigan and nationally between 2017 and 2022 and has fallen over a longer period. It holds on Gates as an individual holder, because about 270,000 acres is the largest private farmland holding reported in the country. It holds on the existence of a data center tax exemption signed in 2024, on the reality of tax foreclosure after years of nonpayment, and on farm relief announced under President Trump. The claim breaks on China as the scale given, because Chinese-linked holdings were less than 1 percent of foreign held land and fell in 2024. It breaks on the NAFTA date and president, because the agreement was signed in 1992 and took effect in 1994, before George W. Bush was president. It breaks on this school levy, because primary homes and qualified farmland pay $0 of the 18 mills. It also breaks on losing everything as a statement of current law, because the owner is entitled to the surplus proceeds after the tax debt is paid.
The second claim holds on the national shares for Chinese-linked holdings and for Gates, on the NAFTA dates, and on the exemption for primary homes and qualified farmland under this levy. It also holds on consolidation as a documented pattern, because the farm count fell while the average farm size rose from 441 acres in 2017 to 463 acres in 2022. The claim breaks if a small national share is heard as an answer to every local case, because a national percentage does not measure concentration in one county or the effect of one large sale on one community. It also breaks if the exemption from this one levy is heard as an exemption from property tax altogether, because homes and farms still pay other millages and the State Education Tax, and a total unpaid bill can still reach foreclosure.
Both claims stand on the same ground. Farms are fewer and larger than they were. Outside buyers, including foreign investors and wealthy individuals, do buy farmland. Property tax is a recurring cost of owning land, and the state enforces it through foreclosure after a long delinquency. State and federal governments also intervene in the same system, through tax exemptions, clean energy standards, and direct farm payments.
95 percent. After decades of decline and consolidation, 95 percent of United States farms in 2022 were still family owned and operated, and those farms operated 84 percent of the land in farms. The record leaves a narrower argument than either claim states: how fast family operations are consolidating, who is buying the land that does change hands, and what tax and incentive policy should do about it.
No projection filed. No past case in the record is close enough to this subject to project from.
The factual part is settled by the documents cited above: the farm counts, the foreign holding figures, the NAFTA dates, the Gates acreage, the tax laws, the exemption, the court decisions, the relief program, and the text and ballot status of the proposed alternative. Those items are not debatable, because each one is recorded in a census, a federal report, a statute, a court decision, or a dated announcement. What the record cannot settle is how much outside ownership a community should accept, whether schools and local services should be funded by a tax on property that can end in foreclosure, and whether data center and clean energy incentives are worth their cost in land, energy, and forgone revenue. Those items are debatable, because each one asks what should be done, which is a question of values and policy. They belong to the reader and to the ballot.
National ownership shares are used because those are the figures published by USDA. They do not measure ownership concentration in any single Michigan county, and this brief does not present them as if they did.
USDA, Census of Agriculture 2022 and Economic Research Service summary · USDA Farm Service Agency, Foreign Holdings of U.S. Agricultural Land through December 31, 2024 · Congressional Research Service, The North American Free Trade Agreement · Associated Press assessment of farmland ownership claims, with Land Report figures · Michigan Public Acts 181 and 207 of 2024, and Public Act 235 of 2023 · USDA press release, December 8, 2025, Farmer Bridge payments · Michigan Treasury, principal residence and qualified agricultural exemption guidance · Michigan General Property Tax Act, forfeiture and foreclosure provisions · Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023) · Rafaeli, LLC v. Oakland County, 505 Mich. 429 (2020) · AxMiTax, proposal text.
No filed updates.
You can debate what to do about the facts here. The facts are not the debate.