WASHINGTON, D.C. – Drive through Van Wert and Paulding counties in Ohio and you’ll come across Blue Creek Wind Farm with its 152 turbines, the largest wind-based power station in the state. The Spanish utility giant Iberdrola owns and operates the 304 mega-watt facility and the land it stands on as well.

In Wayne County, Ill., German fiberglass manufacturer Knauf owns farms on 3,700 acres and is registered as the Skillet Fork Farm Corporation in the United States.

Dutch farmers from the Netherlands have already opened dairies in Iowa, New Mexico and South Dakota. The largest concentration of Dutch dairy farmers appears to be in the fertile area where Ohio, Indiana and Michigan meet. In this tri-state area at least 41 Dutch dairy farmers have arrived the past 10 years.

According to statistics from the USDA, the state with the most foreign ownership and investment is Maine, which has 3.1 million acres that are foreign-controlled, followed closely by Texas at 3 million. Rounding out the top five are Alabama (1.6 million acres), Washington (1.5 million) and Michigan (1.3 million).

For the past 10 years, news of growing foreign ownership of U.S. farmland is raising red flags in farming communities, and efforts to limit foreign ownership have gained momentum.

Jake Davis, policy director for Family Farm Action, advocates supporting limits on foreign ownership of farmland.

“Family Farm Action is a coalition of family farmers and our organization is working with lawmakers in Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri to introduce bills banning foreign ownership,” Davis said. “The closer you are to the land, the more likely you are to take care of it. The same goes to the closer you are to the ownership of farm animals.”

Already, six states have laws banning foreign ownership of farmland. Those states are Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

Iowa law forbids any “nonresident alien, foreign business or foreign government” from holding agricultural land in the state, though certain exceptions can be made related to inheritance. Illinois does not limit foreign ownership of farmland. Foreigners, however, must register their purchases.

In Tennessee, foreign corporations must obtain a certificate of authority from the secretary of state before they can conduct business. In Kentucky, foreign corporations must be licensed to do business in the state. In Indiana, the number of acres that non-citizens can own is capped at 320.

“We strongly oppose foreign ownership of farmland,” said Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau. “U.S. ownership of the land provides better stewardship of the land and it’s better for rural communities. We need to protect this valuable asset for the United States.”

Data from the USDA shows that foreign investors control (either through direct ownership or long-term leases) at least 28.3 million acres, valued at $52.2 billion. That area is about the size of the state of Ohio.

Breaking it down further, 54.9 percent of American land under foreign ownership is forestland, 23.6 percent is pastureland and 21.5 percent is cropland.

Since 2011, Chinese businesses have made dozens of transactions for U.S. farmland, USDA data shows. For example, the Chinese firm Shuanghui received national attention when it purchased U.S. pork producer Smithfield Foods for a record $4.7 billion. As part of that deal, Shuanghui also acquired more than 146,000 acres of farmland across the United States, worth more than $500 million.

But the Chinese don’t come close to Canadian investors, who own 25 percent (or 7,271,590 acres) of combined agricultural and non-agricultural land. Thirty-five percent (or 10,090,874 acres) of U.S. land is owned by four countries: the Netherlands (17 percent), Germany (6 percent), United Kingdom (6 percent) and Italy (5 percent). The remaining 11,655,571 acres (or 40 percent) of all reported foreign-held agricultural and non-agriculture land, are held by other countries.