Watch on. Hes the largest landowner in the United States. In a 2020 blog post, he wrote, "The rich should pay more than they currently do, and that includes Melinda and me.". En cliquant sur Accepter tout, vous acceptez que Yahoo et nos partenaires traitent vos informations personnelles et utilisent des technologies telles que les cookies pour afficher des publicits et des contenus personnaliss, et des fins de mesure des publicits et des contenus, dtude des audiences et de dveloppement de produit. Get the world's best independent media newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. After buying it for $2 million in 1988, Gates spent $63 million and seven years in building the 66,000 sq ft estate. Bill Gates is best-known for cofounding Microsoft, but he's also a major US landowner, having bought 275,000 acres of farmland. People involved in the Gates financial empire stress that the familys philanthropic endeavors are kept separate from their investments and business ventures. BlackRock, meanwhile, is also not the owner of the majority of single family houses in the country. How Much Land Does Bill Gates Own In Africa? Some experts have pointed to Gatess well-known sustainability and green tech initiatives as a possible reason, but during an earlier Reddit AMA in 2021, Gates said, my investment group chose to do this. 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. 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. That makes Invitation Homes the, largest operator of single-family rental homes in the country, but still represents, BlackRock also suggested it was being confused for the similarly-named i. nvestment management firm Blackstone, which until recently owned Invitation Homes. So while the tech mogul certainly owns a large constellation of farms, its nowhere close to the majority nationwide. The Microsoft co-founder is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the country with some 269,000 acres across dozens of states, according to last years edition of. 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. Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest companies in the S&P 500, with a market value of $522.43 billion. In his annual Reddit AMA Wednesday, Gates was asked why he has bought so much farmland. This means biosludge from human waste will be spread on farms to grow more GMOs all to save the planet.. He said he did so to make the farms "more productive" and "create more jobs," adding that it was his investment team that made the decision. 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. Why Bill Gates Keeps Buying Up So Much Farmland, Particle Accelerator Reveals Beginning of Time, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. 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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. The landowners can include investors like Gates. The nearby community of Buckeye has grown more than tenfold in the last 20 years. The post says . While Gates is still the top farmland owner in the U.S., not all of the property he owns is farmland. One of the consequences of farm operators not actually owning their land is figuring out where farm subsidy money goes; much of it trickles to the actual owner of the land, who may just be treating farmland as a basic real estate investment. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. Kids in England had to wear masks at school because No10 'didn't want an argument' with Nicola Sturgeon - Health ministers knew there was no evidence to justify making kids abide by rule of 6 - but No10 'didn't Sunak bustled like a wide-eyed labrador, his tail waggier than a windscreen wiper in a downpour: HENRY Bill Gates: America's Top Farmland Owner | The Land Report, Do not sell or share my personal information. ET First Published: March 10, 2021 at 8: . However, this practice of buying up agricultural land predates Bill Gates and has been a popular investment for the super-rich since at least the early 2000s. Rising temperatures could also shrink by up to 80 per cent the areas where beans will grow. Were connecting [smallholders] to the entire business chain, says Jama. With $22 million in . 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. But a Gates spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that the claim that hes bought the majority of the nations farmland is false, pointing to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from February that showed there were more than 895 million total acres of farmland in the country last year. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was launched in 2000 and has $46.8 billion in assets (December 2018). Three years ago, the harvest amounted to three cartloads of maize and four to six bags of soybeans. Gates and his wife own 269,000 acres of farmland. 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. of the richest people in the country, owns less than one percent of the nations total farmland. 5. It aims to help poor farmers, especially in Africa and South Asia, get the tools, technologies, and resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty. If each acre can produce more food, thats good news for farmers. Social media users are falsely claiming that Gates owns the majority of U.S. farmland. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. We invest in the farms to raise productivity. Malone's 2.2 million acres are largely located in Maine, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming and include profitable cattle ranches. 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. AGRA farms are key suppliers, says Gudmunds. In the words of Bill Gates, 3 billion people need to die. The comments below have not been moderated. Large investors usually work with expert advisors to help them acquire and manage their agricultural holdings. It has been very fulfilling for me and is my full time job," Gates continued. Otherwise, Id have missed out on the information that has transformed my life, she says. Our exposure to Invitation Homes is owning its stock in mutual funds we manage, not buying houses w/ them, BlackRock tweeted. That makes Invitation Homes the largest operator of single-family rental homes in the country, but still represents a tiny fraction of all such homes. The title for largest landholdings overall goes to US businessman John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, who owns 2.2million acres. She is thinking of buying land to build a house for renting, and a truck to allow her to trade her merchandise more widely. In total Mr Gates and his wife Melinda own 269,000 acres of land across 19 states, including 69,071 acres in Louisiana and 47,927 acres in Arkansas. In January, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would create a nonprofit entity called Gates Ag One that will speed up efforts to provide smallholder farmers in developing countries with access to the affordable tools and innovations they need to sustainably improve crop productivity and adapt to the effects of climate change.. Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. The group is called Leading Harvest, and the Gates-linked Cottonwood Ag is one of its founding members. A single square mile contains 640 acres. In six years that number has more than doubled. Real estate mogul and owner of the Los Angeles Rams, Stan Kroenke, owns 1.4 million acres of land in the United States, including a 124,000 acre ranch in Montana and additional land in Wyoming. We hope by 2015 to have reached 20 million smallholders, says Bashir Jama of AGRA, who runs the organisations soil health programme. The Emmerson family owns and operates Sierra Pacific Industries, a company that logs usable lumber after forest fires and sells it to lumber retailers. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. According to the Journal, they are even discouraged from using Facebook and other social-media platforms. He warned us about a pandemic, he dedicates . Our exposure to Invitation Homes is owning its stock in mutual funds we manage, not buying houses w/ them,. In emails, BlackRock spokesman Christopher Beattie told The Associated Press that the firm primarily invests in retail, office buildings, hotels and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes, but he declined to provide a breakdown. In fact, in June of 2022 he secured an additional 2,100 acres of farmland in North Dakota for roughly $13.5 million. Bill Gates is working hard to prove he's a great guy. 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. Another notable acquisition was Cascade's $170 million purchase of 14,500 acres of farmland in Washington state from John Hancock Life Insurance in 2018. Getty Images for TIME The acquisitions are held directly, as well as through Gates' personal investment entity, Cascade Investments. owns the patent of the COVID-19 virus. Artificial sweetener erythritol linked to heart attacks and strokes, Mediterranean diet may prevent cognitive issues for people with MS, Strange quantum event happens once every 10 billion chances, Aye-aye and possums top list of mammals we should focus on saving, Polar bears caught feeding on a whale carcass in breathtaking photos, The amazing ways electricity in your body shapes you and your health, How AI chatbots in search engines will completely change the internet, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, many African countries have been losing nutrients from their soils, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Bill Gates is well-known for building Microsoft, but it's a lesser-known fact that he's also the biggest private landowner in the US. The 65-year-old responded by declaring his . According to Mother Jones, the average price of farmland increased six times from 1940 to 2015, and the trend is likely to continue as the amount of arable land in the U.S. continues to shrink from climate-related pressures. One of the more colorful theories pertains to Gatess strange interest in U.S. agriculture, with rumors that the former Microsoft CEO owns upward of 80 percent of farmland in the United States. The risk is large. FILE - Bill Gates attends a discussion during the 'Munich Security Conference' in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. According to 2021 article from the Land Report, a magazine about land ownership, Gates owns approximately 242,000 . From these initial three countries, the programme has expanded to 18. When fully developed the area could be home to 200,000 residents and be similar in size to the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, The Land Report said. 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 . Grinning and bearing it? This article will go into detail about how much land Bill Gates owns and why he owns so much. 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. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions., According to the North Dakota Corporate or Limited Liability Company Farming Law, there are certain exceptions, such as permitting registered family farms or allowing the use of the land for business purposes., Wrigleys office said it had come to our attention that Red River Trust may have acquired land for farming or ranching in Pembina County on Nov. 4, 2021.. The Gates' portfolio of farmland covers 18 states. There are more than 85 million single-family homes in the country, and only around 15 million of those are rentals, according to the latest American Housing Survey by the Census Bureau. Gates and his wife paid almost $171 million for 14,500 acres of farmland in the Horse Heaven Hills of Benton County, Wash., according to The Land Report. 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. North Dakota Farmland Purchase. The property is currently worth $130.8 million. He added: 'In addition, the states oldest winery, Chateau Ste. They give farmers more bargaining power and allows them to jointly fund communal assets, such as secure storehouses. That means Gates, whose net worth is estimated at some $134 billion. Through Sierra Pacific, the family owns some 2 million acres in California and Washington. Gates has been buying land like it's going out of style. Larson makes money, and Mr. Gates gives it away., Larson and his team are famously tight-lipped. A new report from AGRA says climate change could increase the number of malnourished people in sub-Saharan Africa from 223 million today to 355 million in 2050. 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. 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. Those people are upset, but there are others that are just livid about this.. 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 Land Report reference came out in winter 2021, after which controversies circulated about Gates' accumulation of American farmland. That immediately set off alarm bells, OKeefe says. We wont even come close.. Forty percent of all children in sub-Saharan Africa are stunted. This was also invaluable. Bill Gates' Mega House - $154 Million. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced an immediate commitment of up to $100 million for coronavirus relief on Wednesday. African smallholders are often isolated, unable to get credit or find buyers for their produce. BlackRock is sometimes confused w/ Blackstone, which owned Invitation Homes. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. 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