China Buying US Farmland and The Lesson of Hengist and Vortigern
In 2013 Smithfield Farms, the world’s largest pork producer, was purchased by a Chinese company that is owned by a member of the Communist Party of China . There was a big stumbling block for this purchase, the state of Missouri had wisely banned the foreign ownership of farmland. The law, which dated back to 1978, was an example of some basic commonsense. Unfortunately, Smithfield bought enough legislators to have the law changed. The law they passed, just in time for the Chinese purchase, allowed up to 1 percent of Missouri’s agricultural land to come under foreign ownership. The average American, sees little wrong with this. With no understanding of history, a lust for cheap food and cheap consumer goods, why would they have a problem with it?
History tells a story of a similar folly. In the book Our Island Story there is a recounting of the famous 5th century exchange between Hengist and Vortigern. Hengist, a pagan and foreigner, approached the ruler of the Britons, Vortigern, with a proposition…
Hengist made low bow, pretending to be very humble. “Give your servant just as much land as can be surrounded by a leather thong.”, He said. Vortigern thought there could be no harm in doing that, so he said, “Yes you can have so much”. But but he did not know what a cunning fellow Hengist was….
The story continues with the cunning Hengist finding the largest bull he can find and skinning it. The finished hide was cut in a very thin spiral, from the outside to the inside. This provided him enough land to build a small fortress and gain a foothold in Briton. This, by the way, was how Briton was lost. The results for America will not be any different.
Scott M Terry
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This is continually happening here in Australia. Banks are now forcing farmers off the land that they have held for over a hundred and fifty years and selling it off to overseas interests and we will never get it or the food produced back.
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