Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed two bills on Tuesday that would have cleared the way for foreign ownership of farmland and potentially eliminated obstacles to the planned $4.7 billion purchase of Smithfield Foods Inc by a Chinese company.Missouri and at least seven other U.S. states including Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin, have often-overlooked laws that prohibit foreign ownership of agricultural land.Nixon vetoed state Senate Bill 9, which contained a provision that would have struck down the existing ban on foreign ownership of agricultural land in the state. The provision would have allowed non-U.S. businesses to own up to a total of 1 percent of the state's agricultural lands - or about 300,000 acres of farmland, an area the size of New York City.The provision had been inserted as an amendment to the larger omnibus agriculture bill after it had already been rejected by a legislative committee and was opposed by leading agricultural groups, Nixon's office said in a statement.
Smithfield Foods, Inc. produces and markets a variety of fresh meat and packaged meats products both domestically and internationally. Shares of SFD fell by 0.15% or $-0.05/share to $32.77. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $17.55 and as high as $33.96. On average, 5142620 shares of SFD exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 2180022.
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