How Much Land Does Bill Gates Own In Africa? According to the Winter 2020 issue of The Land Report, a quarterly magazine that tracks U.S. land sales, Bill and Melinda Gates now own 242,000 acres of farmland worth "more than $690 million . Many stories focused on Gates longstanding interest in climate change and sustainability and suggested those concerns might be driving the land purchases. Another is the possibility of cost competitive biofuels. 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. For now, though, all that smart city talk is more than a little premature. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world, but his wealth pales in comparison to that of other billionaires. But if it ever gets built, it would boost the value of Gates land dramatically. Gates, who is the fourth-richest person in the world, owns an estimated 242,000 acres of farmland, analysis by The Land Report discovered.. 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 property is currently worth $130.8 million. Ive gotten a big earful on this from clear across the state, its not even from that neighborhood, said Goehring. 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. 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. In his Reddit AMA last year, one user said, "What do you plan to do with all the farmland you have purchased? Though it's only a sliver of the nation's 900 million agricultural acres, Gates' trust gobbled up property in . 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. In his annual Reddit AMA Wednesday, Gates was asked why he has bought so much farmland. Gates reportedly paid nearly $1,041,293 in property taxes in 2017, for this property. Given that Gates is the third-richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $132 billion, he falls in behind Tesla founder Elon Musk and Amazons Jeff Bezos those money managers have their hands full. Without innovation, we will not solve climate change, Gates said. Gates, currently the sixth-richest person in the world, has a net worth of $111 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Soon they came back with the answer: The Louisiana company was acting on behalf of Cascade Investment LLC, the secretive investment firm that manages most of the huge fortune belonging to Bill Gates. But some of the software pioneers investments do reveal his grander goals. The 65-year-old responded by declaring his . The farmland acquired by Gates appeared to be earmarked for genetically engineered corn and soy crops the base foods for what will become synthetic ultra-processed products like synthetic meat. The Land Report reference came out in winter 2021, after which controversies circulated about Gates' accumulation of American farmland. Farming is all of a sudden part of the solution and not just part of the problem, Sherrick adds. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider AGRAs aim, helping small farmers become professional, is backed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Wonderful Company cofounders Stewart and Lynda Resnick (net worth: $7.1 billion) ranked number three . The booming population of Africa looms over his foundation's latest global survey. Bill Gates is now the largest private farmland owner in the United States, according to a new report. Learn more about fact-checking at AP. The landowners can include investors like Gates. For five generations, the Reed Family has owned and operated the logging company Green Diamond Resource Co. And yet, he can't seem to wrestle free of the internet's villainous conspiracies against him. ET First Published: March 10, 2021 at 8: . So AGRA is putting farmers in touch with everyone from financiers who offer microcredit to agents who buy produce for sale elsewhere. A corporation or LLC found in violation of the law has up to a year to divest itself fromt he land or face a penalty up to $100,000, according to the letter. 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. The tech mogul, who is the fourth richest person in the world with a . Introduction. Gates owns over 242,000 . Not all of these owners are American; in fact, the portion of farmland that is foreign-owned has grown about 60 percent in the last decade, from 22 million acres in 2009 to 35.2 million . The commitment is a ten-fold increase from the foundation's . AGRA farms are key suppliers, says Gudmunds. According to press reports, Gates farmland empire is mostly managed by a Cascade subsidiary called Cottonwood Ag Management. Most likely, it is just one more asset in Gates vast portfolio, quietly appreciating in value while the billionaire himself remains at arms length. "In terms of the very rich I think they should pay a lot more in taxes and they should give away their wealth over time. We invest in the farms to raise productivity. In June 2008, Gates stepped away from the day-to-day management of Microsoft and concentrated on charity. The 13,573-square-foot home has six bedrooms, 11 bedrooms and more luxury features than you can count. Posted by Triple Net Matt July 4, 2022 Posted in commercial real estate Tags: bill gates, commercial broker, commercial real estate, net lease, nnn, STNL. Im hoping to lay a concrete floor soon, she says. 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. AGRAs methods are one way to do so. Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., Waste Management, Inc., Canadian National Railway Company, Caterpillar Inc., Walmart Inc., Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts & more are the companies owned by Bill Gates. There isn't some grand scheme involved - in fact all these decisions are made by a professional investment team.". Theres a tendency in the media to personalize this, OKeefe says. The family's 1.7 million acres of land are primarily spread across Washington, Oregon, and California. As Slate financial writer Henry Grabar concluded, the proposed town of Belmont is not a city, nor is it smart, nor does the Microsoft founder appear to be involved in any meaningful way.. 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. So far, only eight of 54 countries have done so.. , an annual survey of the nations largest landowners. With proper techniques, the carbon from decaying plant matter can be kept safely in the soil, rather than entering the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. The Gates Foundation's trust invests in the same companies it serves through its development programs, including Monsanto, BASF, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, and many others. 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. Since it works as an investment for him, it also includes the benefits of using land as an . 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. CNN founder Ted Turner owns 2 million acres of land largely in New Mexico, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Georgia. So while the tech mogul certainly owns a large constellation of farms, its nowhere close to the majority nationwide. Purchased fromMadeleine Pickens, the former wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the property deal is one of the largest ever recorded in the area,The Wall Street Journalreported. 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. FILE - Bill Gates attends a discussion during the 'Munich Security Conference' in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. 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 has started laying out his plans for creating a smart city in Phoenix, Arizona, science-news outlet Futurism wrote. Tagged Under: North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring told KFYR that public reaction to the purchase has been largely negative. Those people are upset, but there are others that are just livid about this.. The trust and Headley were given 30 days to respond to the letter. In the words of Bill Gates, 3 billion people need to die. Gates owns roughly 275,000 acres of farmland in the US, according to the 2022 edition of the Land Report 100, a yearly survey of the biggest landowners in the country. The AGRA project is the most concerted effort yet to fix the problem. The vision is to produce more efficiently, but to be aware that climate change is happening, and that we must use all best practices to allow farmers to adapt, says Guei. The Prestigious school where Princes William and Harry were educated is EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Prince William's potentially awkward visit to homelessness charity. The risk is large. Stay up to date with what you want to know. The couple also snapped up an oceanfront home in San Diego County, California, last year, for a record making $43 million. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough. There were 895.3 million acres of farmland in America in 2021, according to a 2022 reportfrom the Department of Agriculture. Renmatix provides an innovative process that is an exciting pathway to pursue., He has not elaborated on his plans yet, but Gates will apparently use plant waste and biomass from his farmland to develop biofuels. 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. 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. 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 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 . "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?" 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.. Their largest holdings are 69,071 acres in Louisiana, 47,927 acres in . Bill Gates is working hard to prove he's a great guy. But the purchaser of record was a small, obscure company in Louisiana. , said his investment group was behind the purchases, and suggested it was linked to seed and biofuel development. He sees Gates involvement even if indirect as crucial in encouraging the industry to embrace the new sustainability standard. NY Post Gates is said to own nearly 270,000 acres of farmland nationwide. Newhouse raised his concerns about Chinese land ownership as he proposed an amendment in a new agricultural appropriations bill, H.R. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. This parcel apparently makes up the bulk of the billionaire couples farmland holdings. The land, most of which is non-irrigated, was transferred to Red River Trust on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 of last year. 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. 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. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was launched in 2000 and has $46.8 billion in assets (December 2018). Today, the Belmont tract remains mostly empty desert. We've received your submission. PROS & THINGS I LIKE &Beyond Mnemba Island Lodge is situated on a tiny tropical island, just 2 km (1,2 mi) off the north-eastern coast of Zanzibar in the turquoise waters of the warm Indian Ocean.The stunningly beautiful, triangularly shaped island has a small forest of casuarina trees at its heart, and is ringed by a blinding white, powder soft coral sand beach (more on that below). Farmland in those parts is valuable, commanding prices between $10,000 and $15,000 per acre, far beyond the state average of about $2,000. The nearby community of Buckeye has grown more than tenfold in the last 20 years. Earlier this week, North Dakota State Attorney General Drew Wrigley wrote a letter to Red River Trust, care of Headley, notifying it that corporations and limited liability companies were prohibited from owning or leasing farmland or ranchland in the state of North Dakota., Wrigley wrote that these entities were also barred from engaging in farming or ranching.. 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