One of the first patriotic songs many of us remember learning in elementary school music class is “America the Beautiful.”

This classic was also a favorite of Ronald Reagan, who heard Ray Charles deliver a stirring rendition of it at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

In his 1989 farewell address to the nation, Reagan cautioned us about the challenges facing America, which he called the “shining city on a hill.”

Reagan explained how those 35 years of age or older at the time grew up in a different America. They were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. There was a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. But, as the nation was about to enter the 1990s, things were changing.

“Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children,” Reagan said. “And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.

The 40th president said that we needed to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise - and that freedom is special, rare, fragile and that it needs protection.

Today, Reagan would be shocked at how we’ve failed to protect the land ownership in our nation’s heartland.

For years the Chinese have used a subtle but steady strategy to increase land ownership. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the turn of this century, Chinese owners had about 192,000 acres of U.S. farmland. In 2007, it bought six farms, all in California, and the next year, it bought 30 outside California, in Arizona, Texas and Missouri.

In the last decade, the Chinese shifted their investment playbook from farming overseas to acquiring established agricultural businesses and operations and by 2019, its total acreage in the U.S. exceeded 35.2 million acres, a 60 percent increase.

This land grab by Chinese corporations not only affects American landowners but it also compromises national security by handing over the supply, distribution and processing of our food supply to a hostile adversary with little oversight.

Several elected leaders have stepped forward.

Congressman Dan Newhouse, an agricultural scientist representing Washington state’s 4th District, recently introduced a bill that would prevent people or organizations associated with the Chinese government from buying any public or private agricultural land in this country, as well as from participating in any U.S. Department of Agriculture programs with the exception of food safety inspections. In his news release, Newhouse said that we are the greatest country in the world, and there is simply no reason we should be reliant on a communist country such as China for our food supply.

“If we cede responsibility over our food supply chain to an adversarial foreign nation, we could be forced into exporting food that is grown within our own borders and meant for our own use,” he said.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem strongly believes that when another country controls our food supply, that’s when they truly control us.

“If we think a pandemic was scary, wait until we realize that we can’t put food on the grocery store shelves because China controls the entire system, and what most of America hasn’t been paying attention to, is that China - for years - has been buying up our chemical companies, our fertilizer companies, our processing systems, and now they’re buying land, and we have foreign countries that are heavily invested in that entire supply system,” Noem stated.

“We are losing control of the ability to feed our people and that’s what is challenging us today. We finally are waking up to that, but it is going to be a serious situation that this administration needs to recognize they have a huge role in, and all they’ve done is strengthen our enemies and given them more ability to control our food supply which makes us in a very precarious situation as a country.”

More of our elected leaders like Rep. Newhouse and Gov. Noem, who are literally fighting for the American homeland, need to be proactive.

Hopefully, there are also American voters out there who are still stirred by the opening words to “America the Beautiful”: “O beautiful for spacious skies. For amber waves of grain. For purple mountain majesties. Above the fruited plain.”

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.