Their largest holdings are 69,071 acres in Louisiana, 47,927 acres in . The risk is large. His magazine, The Land Report, tracks major land transactions and produces an annual list of the 100 biggest US landowners. With $22 million in . In his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Gates explains why raising beef cattle causes more harmful emissions than other forms of agriculture. 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. FILE - Bill Gates attends a discussion during the 'Munich Security Conference' in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. It isless than .1% of all US farmland because the ownership is so diverse. 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.. STEPHEN 'What sentimental tosh!' For comparison, the state of Rhode Island covers an area of 1,214 square miles. One major customer for AGRA farmers is the UN World Food Programme (WFP), a famine-relief organisation. In 2006, African governments pledged to inject 10 per cent of their spending into agriculture, says Ameyaw. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. We've received your submission. Investors bought a record 18.4% of the homes purchased in the fourth quarter of 2021 three-quarters of which were single-family homes. 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. Meanwhile, American agriculture today is being transformed as farmers employ new technologies and Big Data to help them manage their crops. In his annual Reddit AMA Wednesday, Gates was asked why he has bought so much farmland. Gates owns a 4.5 acre ranch in Wellington, Florida. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. We hope by 2015 to have reached 20 million smallholders, says Bashir Jama of AGRA, who runs the organisations soil health programme. He assigned his research team to dig a little deeper. retail, office buildings, hotels and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes, but he declined to provide a breakdown. Although the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is not directly connected with Cascade or its investments, it also has a farmland initiative: Gates Ag One, established in the Greater St. Louis area, with a mission to help 'smallholder farmers adapt to climate change and make food production in low- and middle-income countries more productive, resilient, and sustainable. Over the past three years she has trebled her farms output and increased her income 15-fold (see A life transformed). Today, the Belmont tract remains mostly empty desert. The group is called Leading Harvest, and the Gates-linked Cottonwood Ag is one of its founding members. Were connecting [smallholders] to the entire business chain, says Jama. Weve never been one of the big institutional buyers of single family homes, BlackRock said in response to one tweet. Gates has been buying land like it's going out of style. Why is Bill Gates buying up farmland across America? the latest American Housing Survey by the Census Bureau. Climate change is happening, and we must use all best practices to allow farmers to adapt. . Wife is shocked after husband of 15 years asks for permission to have an affair: 'I don't know what to do', My Daily Horoscope: What does March 2nd hold for MY star sign? Last year, Cascade Investment made a second major investment in Arizona by acquiring more than 2,800 acres known as Spurlock Ranch in Buckeye for $25 million, that could be built out to include 8,500 homes. Whether or not Gates personally directed Cottonwood Ag to get involved in the Leading Harvest project, the move makes both environmental and business sense. 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. Mr. However, while stunting has declined by more than a third in South Asia since 1990, in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of stunted children is still on the rise, up 12 million since 1990 to 56 million. Social media users are falsely claiming that Gates owns the majority of U.S. farmland. The trustee of Red River Trust is Peter Headley, who identifies himself on his LinkedIn page as head of agriculture investment management at Investment Management Co. A 2020 article by NFU Mutual Charitable Trust claimed that Headley once headed an entity called Cottonwood, which was described as an ag-investment platform for Bill and Melinda Gates. The same logic likely holds for Gates Arizona acquisitions. In a 2020 blog post, he wrote, "The rich should pay more than they currently do, and that includes Melinda and me.". This latest outburst is part of constantly growing anger against Gates and his foundation in India. The tech mogul, who is the fourth richest person in the world with a net worth of $121billion, according to Forbes, has quietly built up a massive agriculture portfolio. How Much Land Does Bill Gates Own In Africa? bill gates, BioFuel, biofuels, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, clean technologies, climate change, Coronavirus pandemic, crops, decarbonized power transmission, desalinate, Energy Storage, environ, farmland, fossil fuels, genetic lunacy, GMOs, greenhouse gas emissions, harvest, plant-based protein, solar energy, synthetic meat, zero-carbon cement. That removes a major way for actual farm operators to . His environmental bent also extends to farming. "Why are you buying up so much farmland, do you think this is a problem with billionaire wealth and how much you can disproportionally acquire?" He created the pledge in 2010 with his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, and his close friend and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett. Learn more about fact-checking at AP. Amazing, if truebut its extremely not. BlackRock, meanwhile, is also not the owner of the majority of single family houses in the country. Im hoping to lay a concrete floor soon, she says. 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. 4. The trust and Headley were given 30 days to respond to the letter. .css-v1xtj3{display:block;font-family:FreightSansW01,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-weight:100;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-v1xtj3:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.1387rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-v1xtj3{line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.18581rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-top:0rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-v1xtj3{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.2;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}Particle Accelerator Reveals Beginning of Time, Earth's Inner Core Has Another Inner Core, 8 Questions About Turkey With an Earthquake Expert, Conspiracy: Blaming Weather Weapons for Earthquake, Scientists Just Discovered a Literal Hell, How the NFL Grew the Field for Super Bowl LVII, The Doomsday Clock Is at 90 Seconds to Midnight, Uh, Earth's Inner Core Just Stopped Spinning, Supercomputer: 27% of Earth's Life Dead by 2100, 20 Weird Facts About Our Lovable Planet Earth. Were predicting a decline of 20 to 40 per cent in rainfall across West Africa, says David Sarfo Ameyaw of AGRA. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. The area off Interstate 10, called Belmont, has space for 80,000 homes as well as more than 4,000 acres for schools, offices, and stores; and 3,400 acres of open space. Earlier this year, in May, claims were made that Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates owned the majority of America's farmland. (Related:Why is Bill Gates buying up farmland across America?). But even with his big new agricultural holdings, Gates still doesn't rank in the Top 100 of private landowners overall in the U.S. - when considering owners of land of all types, not just agricultural. 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. While private companies and corporations are increasing . According to mainstream media outlets like the Associated Press, there's absolutely nothing to see here as the Microsoft mogul becomes the largest private owner of U.S. farmland, having acquired as many as 270,000 fertile acres. (Through a spokesperson, the company declined to comment for this article.). In April of this year, Reddit users had a chance to ask Gates this very question. Newsweek called him a sustainable agriculture champion., Those stories dovetailed with earlier reports about Gates large land acquisitions in Arizona. With the Washington state acreage and other recent additions to his portfolio, O'Keefe calculated, Gates now owns at least 242,000 acres of American farmland. Instead, the LDS will add another 12,000 acres to its already massive land holdings, which include over 600,000 acres in Florida alone2 percent of that state's total land mass. He owns a huge . Gates . It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.. The company also took to Twitter to reject the false narrative. Gates owns over 242,000 . People are going to pay attention to what Bill is doing, Sherrick says. 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. 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. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. Microsoft founder and billionaire turned philanthropist Bill Gates recently laid to rest the long-time conspiracy theory that he owns some 80% of all U.S. farmland in his 11th appearance in an . We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The Prestigious school where Princes William and Harry were educated is EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince William's potentially awkward visit to homelessness charity. Now, its latest report says the scheme is achieving its aims. The last one in this top 5 of the largest landowners is once again a large Australian farmer. ITS like having a new life, says Lucy Banda, a farmer in Mwambaso village in western Malawi. In 2006, he helped launch TerraPower, a company developing a new type of compact, ultra-safe nuclear reactor. Larson also makes sure Gates keeps his eggs in a wide variety of baskets. This process is made more efficient by inoculating the seeds with the bacteria. The booming population of Africa looms over his foundation's latest global survey. You cant just say, Ive got $30,000 saved up and I want to buy some farmland, Sherrick notes. The farmland that Gates owns is located in 19 states. 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. Cent of their spending into agriculture, says David Sarfo Ameyaw of.... To allow farmers to adapt happening, and we must use all best practices to farmers. Single-Family homes for AGRA farmers is the UN World Food Programme ( WFP ), a company a! Removes a major way for actual farm operators to transformed as farmers employ new technologies and Data... Square miles school where Princes William and Harry were educated is EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince 's! The country latest Report says the scheme is achieving its aims x27 ; s latest global Survey large Australian.... 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