Arkansas officials last week ordered Chinese pesticide company Syngenta to sell 160 acres of its Arkansas farmland within the next two years due to its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In June Frontline News revealed that Syngenta, a large agrichemical corporation based in Switzerland, is owned by ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned company owning dozens of international subsidiaries. It is chaired by Li Fanrong, a veteran in the Chinese energy industry who also sits on the board of Sinochem Holdings, another company owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In 2020, Sinochem was one of the corporations designated by the Trump administration as owned by the People’s Liberation Army, the armed wing of the CCP. Due to an executive order signed by President Trump and extended by Joe Biden, American companies and individuals are prohibited from owning shares in companies like Sinochem.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation earlier this year prohibiting foreign companies from owning land in Arkansas. If Syngenta, which owns 1,500 acres of US land, fails to sell its Arkansas land within the next two years, it can be forced out of the state entirely. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has also fined Syngenta $280,000 for failing to report its foreign ownership in a timely manner.

Syngenta spokesman Saswato Das called the order a “shortsighted action that fails to account for the effects of such an action, intended or not, on the U.S. agricultural market.”

Syngenta is the largest manufacturer of atrazine, an effeminizing toxin used as a pesticide that also pollutes US food and drinking water. Eighty million pounds of atrazine are used in the US every year, even though it has been found to cause demasculinization, chemical castration, cancer and birth defects.

When researcher Tyrone Hayes published his finding that atrazine causes feminization in male frogs — to the point that some frogs began producing eggs — he was targeted by Syngenta. Not only did the corporation hire academics to try to discredit Hayes, but documents show that then-Syngenta Communications Manager Sherry Ford had plans to investigate Hayes’ wife and paint him as “paranoid schizo and narcissistic.” Another proposal involved purchasing Hayes’ name as a search word online.

When Hayes would give lectures or perform speaking engagements, Syngenta operatives would follow him and ask pointed questions to mock him. A Syngenta spokeswoman confirmed that “[a] Syngenta representative does try to attend events where Dr. Hayes is speaking. It’s in our best interest, and farmers’, that we have the opportunity to counter his outrageous accusations.”

According to reports, Syngenta also purchased Google ads discrediting Hayes. The ads would appear when his name was searched.

A Frontline News inquiry in June about Syngenta’s CCP ties yielded no comments from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Homeland Security, House Foreign Affairs Committee or relevant lawmakers.