But, Gates may not be the largest private-farmland owner for much longer. She then joined the AGRA programme (see main story), who put her forward as a model participant. The entity shares the same address as Campbell Farms. In this excerpt, Young claims that the founder of Microsoft said that 3 billion people need to be eliminated from earth, starting with Africans: "For the purpose of sterilisation and population control, there are too many people on the planet we need to get rid of. Get the world's best independent media newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. OKeefe knew Gates had been acquiring farmland for years, mostly through various Cascade subsidiaries. According to public records, the billionaires portfolio includes shares in Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, a Coca-Cola bottling company, and the tractor manufacturer Deere & Co., among other non-flashy investments. Some are near cities and might end up having other uses.". Earlier this year, in May, claims were made that Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates owned the majority of America's farmland. The Land Report reference came out in winter 2021, after which controversies circulated about Gates' accumulation of American farmland. Amazing, if truebut its extremely not. A new coalition of farmland owners, operators and environmental groups is working to come up with verifiable standards for sustainable farming. People want to know, Why does Bill Gates want all this land? , But hyper-wealthy people like Gates dont make every decision personally, OKeefe notes. Malone made his fortune as a media tycoon, building the company Tele-Communications, Inc, or TCI, and acting as its CEO before selling it to AT&T for $50 billion in 1999. The couples acquired farmlandisowned through a private investment company Cascade Investment.This company also owns shares in plant-based protein companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, as well as agricultural equipment maker John Deere. Ive gotten a big earful on this from clear across the state, its not even from that neighborhood, said Goehring. The 65-year-old responded by declaring his . In total he owns 268,984 acres of land of all types in 19 states, including a suburb up for development - as a so-called 'smart city' - outside Phoenix, Arizona. The fund recently raised $1 billion, which it is pouring into companies developing hydrogen-fueled airplanes, zero-carbon building materials, and other green innovations. owns the patent of the COVID-19 virus. Starting in 2013, Gates began investing his billions (through the firm Cascade Investment) in agriculture because of its steady increase in value and low volatility. He warned us about a pandemic, he dedicates . (Related:Why is Bill Gates buying up farmland across America?). Who knows. While the Gates' own a lot of farmland, nonfarmers own 283 million acres of farmland throughout the U.S. Investors bought a record 18.4% of the homes purchased in the fourth quarter of 2021 three-quarters of which were single-family homes. The new green economy will mean new opportunities for land owners, OKeefe believes. Its goal is to help eliminate the need for animals from the meat supply by 2035, but its products rely on GMOs and heavy use of herbicides and pesticides. ', Last year the couple bought an oceanfront home in Del Mar, near San Diego, California, for $43million, The six-bedroom Del Mar home boasts a ten-person jacuzzi and a swimming pool overlooking the ocean, Gates, pictured last June during a concert for COVID-19 relief, purchased the San Diego property just as the pandemic took hold in March, In 2017, Gates reportedly bought a significant stake in 24,800 acres of land outside Phoenix, Arizona, which he planned to turn into a 'smart city' with 200,000 residents. As of 2020, industry reports show he owned about 0.027% of U.S. farmland. I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The massive land grab by Gates last year gave the tech magnate his first appearance on The Land Report, a magazine that "provides news, information, and . The Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates owns 242,000 acres of farmland in the US, making him the largest private-farmland owner, an analysis by The Land Report found in January. For now, though, all that smart city talk is more than a little premature. Bill Gates and Neo-Feudalism: A Closer Look at Farmer Bill. The portion of land that isn't owned by farmers varies widely regionally; in some areas, almost 80 percent of agricultural land is held by non-operators. Gates and his wife own 269,000 acres of farmland. Theres a tendency in the media to personalize this, OKeefe says. Our office needs to confirm how your company uses this land and whether this use meets any of the statutory exceptions, such as the business purpose exception, so that we may close this case and file it in our inactive files, the letter says. But the details are murky, and there is no evidence that the billionaires farmland-buying spree is driven by anything more than a desire to have a well-diversified portfolio. The couple also snapped up an oceanfront home in San Diego County, California, last year, for a record making $43 million. The Land Report magazine reported in January that Bill and Melinda Gates have amassed the largest portfolio of private farmland in the U.S. A $171 million purchase of 14,500 acres of prime eastern Washington farmland in 2018 gave the power couple an estimated 242,000 acres of farmland, which is nearly the size of Hong Kong. In 2018 Gates reportedly bought about 16,000 acres in his home state of Washington, including a 14,500-acre tract in the Horse Heaven Hills region that was purchased for nearly $171 million from an insurance company that had paid $75million for it in 2010. The billionaire is one of the founders of the Giving Pledge, which asks the world's wealthiest people to give away most of their fortunes to charitable causes. The family's 1.7 million acres of land are primarily spread across Washington, Oregon, and California. It has become a marquee brand in one of the hottest sectors of the food business. An entity with ties to billionaire Bill Gates bought 2,100 acres of potato farmland in northern North Dakota prompting the states top prosecutor to intervene after complaints from local residents. It was the highest priced land sale in the US that year. Many believe unhinged conspiracy theorists fuel the trend. Introduction. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, BillGatesbuys nearly $1B Heineken stake despite not being a big beer drinker, Bill Gates daughter living in $51M NYC home as she welcomes first baby, Elites want to use AI to censor political opponents, Bill Gates claims his private jet habit not part of the climate problem, Gates longstanding interest in climate change. The group is called Leading Harvest, and the Gates-linked Cottonwood Ag is one of its founding members. 2 min read. . Learn more about fact-checking at AP. Gates responded: "I own less than 1/4000 of the farmland in the US. They give farmers more bargaining power and allows them to jointly fund communal assets, such as secure storehouses. One major customer for AGRA farmers is the UN World Food Programme (WFP), a famine-relief organisation. It is unclear why Gates, better known as a self-confessed computing 'nerd', has invested in farmland so heavily, and details of the land are scarce,as revealed in The Land Report. of the richest people in the country, owns less than one percent of the nations total farmland. has grabbed headlines in recent days, some prominent voices have taken to social media to claim that some other significant acquisitions by deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have largely flown under the radar. So far, only eight of 54 countries have done so.. Gates, the billionaire tech mogul and philanthropist whose net worth was pegged by Bloomberg at $113 billion, has quietly amassed nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across the country, according to the Associated Press. Gates,in an Ask Me Anything sessionon Redditlast year, said his investment group was behind the purchases, and suggested it was linked to seed and biofuel development. ; That makes him the largest landowner in the U.S. Stats show agriculture is a pretty good investment for . Its soil health programme has set up 9000 dealers within 5 kilometres of farmers to sell them the supplies they need. from February that showed there were more than 895 million total acres of farmland in the country last year. Couple find note in chimney that reveals their 290,000 house was 100 times cheaper 50 years ago. The commitment is a ten-fold increase from the foundation's . For now, Gatess ever-expanding farmland ownership is really just rich guy doing rich guy things, and while concerning in a late-stage capitalism sort of way, it isnt as cartoonishly nefarious as some conspiratorial corners of the internet want to believe. The other major problem AGRA is aiming to solve is lack of infrastructure. The billionaire tech mogul and philanthropist has quietly amassed nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across the country, but thats still a relatively small slice of the nations nearly 900 million total farm acres. Of those rentals, less than a third are owned by non-individual investors, according to a 2022 report by Harvard Universitys Joint Center for Housing Studies. Oscar Cainer tells all. Leading Harvest envisions a kind of sustainability seal of approval certifying that a given farm meets environmental standards. AGRAs methods are one way to do so. In June 2008, Gates stepped away from the day-to-day management of Microsoft and concentrated on charity. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider Banda attributes her success to the fertiliser and nitrogen-fixing bacteria she has been applying, which have put extra pep into her crops and enriched the soil. He sees Gates involvement even if indirect as crucial in encouraging the industry to embrace the new sustainability standard. Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world, but his wealth pales in comparison to that of other billionaires. Similar to private equity firms destabilizing the housing market, millionaires and billionaires investing in farmland are also creating their own set of issues, as they are now pricing out young farmers looking to buy land. While Gates appears . Large investors usually work with expert advisors to help them acquire and manage their agricultural holdings. than 85 million single-family homes in the country, and only around 15 million of those are rentals, Of those rentals, less than a third are owned by non-individual investors, according to. Today, Bill Gates owns 242,000 acres of farmland in 19 states. The same logic likely holds for Gates Arizona acquisitions. BlackRock, meanwhile, is also not the owner of the majority of single family houses in the country. Were connecting [smallholders] to the entire business chain, says Jama. Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. Our exposure to Invitation Homes is owning its stock in mutual funds we manage, not buying houses w/ them,. So AGRA is putting farmers in touch with everyone from financiers who offer microcredit to agents who buy produce for sale elsewhere. According to Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 60 percent of row-crop farmland in the Midwest is leased. In 2019, it was reported that Impossible Burger was facing a shortage of soy because it relied on farms that didnt use genetically modified seeds. Bill Gates is buying up the majority of American farmland and BlackRock is buying the majority of single family houses but Im supposed to believe the biggest threat to us is Elon Musk buying Twitter? read one representative tweet thats been liked or shared on the platform more than 250,000 times. In the future, farmers will be paid for sustainability, says Sherrick, who sits on the groups board. The company is the largest producer of wool in Australia. Through Sierra Pacific, the family owns some 2 million acres in California and Washington. Climate change is happening, and we must use all best practices to allow farmers to adapt. In a 2020 blog post, he wrote, "The rich should pay more than they currently do, and that includes Melinda and me.". Public records cited by AgWeek show that the Gates-linked Red River Trust bought the farmland from the owners of Campbell Farms, a potato farming group that is headquartered in Grafton, North Dakota, which is about 50 miles from the Canadian border. as well as other partner offers and accept our. The trust and Headley were given 30 days to respond to the letter. STEPHEN 'What sentimental tosh!' Less rain will be a major factor . Newsweek called him a sustainable agriculture champion., Those stories dovetailed with earlier reports about Gates large land acquisitions in Arizona.
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