For now, though, all that smart city talk is more than a little premature. 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. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops delivered daily to your inbox. While he owns a significant amount, it is a relatively small slice of the nations nearly 900 million total farm acres. AGRA farms are key suppliers, says Gudmunds. 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. He created the pledge in 2010 with his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, and his close friend and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett. 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 . With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. That makes January 13, 2000, a key date in "Bill Gates history," because it's the day he stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and began to devote himself to becoming one of the world's most-celebrated . In six years that number has more than doubled. 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. NY Post Gates is said to own nearly 270,000 acres of farmland nationwide. Larson sees to it that Gates wealth is sensibly, even conservatively, invested. In the Reddit AMA, he also said he'll sell what he owns as money goes towards the foundation. 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.. Social media users are falsely claiming that Gates owns the majority of U.S. farmland. The six-bed Del Mar home, which boasts a ten-person jacuzzi and swimming pool overlooking the ocean, was bought by the couple in late Marchas the international coronavirus pandemic began to take hold. 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. 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. Here are all the companies owned by Bill Gates in 2022. Otherwise, Id have missed out on the information that has transformed my life, she says. Now, its latest report says the scheme is achieving its aims. The farmland that Gates owns is located in 19 states. We hope by 2015 to have reached 20 million smallholders, says Bashir Jama of AGRA, who runs the organisations soil health programme. Meanwhile, American agriculture today is being transformed as farmers employ new technologies and Big Data to help them manage their crops. We already buy 80 per cent of our produce from developing countries, but those that bid for the contracts are usually the larger companies and farms, says Ahnna Gudmunds, the schemes advocacy officer. The moguls holdings include large tracts in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California, and about a dozen other states. Bill Gates owns a ton of farmland in the United Statesas in, about 270,000 acres. by Harvard Universitys Joint Center for Housing Studies. The title for largest landholdings overall goes to US businessman John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, who owns 2.2million acres. Nous, Yahoo, faisons partie de la famille de marques Yahoo. 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. Investment guru Michael Larson, who has worked with Gates since 1994, runs the Washington-based Cascade Investment, as well as supervising the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations nearly $50 billion endowment. Gates Biggest Owner of Farmland in US Now says: "Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, has been revealed as the biggest private owner of farmland in the US, after buying up 242,000 acres in 18 states. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. 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 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. Weve never been one of the big institutional buyers of single family homes, BlackRock, single-family rentals nationwide. Red River Trust filed paperwork with the office of the secretary of state of North Dakota on Feb. 15 of this year. Watch on. Theres a tendency in the media to personalize this, OKeefe says. It was previously owned by Agriculture Company of America, a real estate investment trust acquired by CPPIB in 2013. 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. The other major problem AGRA is aiming to solve is lack of infrastructure. . A more in-depth look at the facts makes a compelling case against the billionaire. Bill Gates is now the largest private farmland owner in the United States, according to a new report. 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. The financial crisis later in that same decade prompted an explosion of investments into farmland when monetary safe havens became scarce. People involved in the Gates financial empire stress that the familys philanthropic endeavors are kept separate from their investments and business ventures. Through Sierra Pacific, the family owns some 2 million acres in California and Washington. 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. CLAIM: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates owns the majority of Americas farmland and the investment firm BlackRock holds the majority of single family houses in the country. 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 . Impossible Foods makes plant-based protein that can be fashioned into burgers. The region west of Phoenix is booming. Since it works as an investment for him, it also includes the benefits of using land as an . We've received your submission. 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. The commitment is a ten-fold increase from the foundation's . Bill Gates is best-known for cofounding Microsoft, but he's also a major US landowner, having bought 275,000 acres of farmland. ", Gates responded at the time, "My investment team bought the farmland. Less rain will be a major factor. Bill Gates, whose house in the Medina area of Seattle is pictured, has built up a diverse property portfolio over the years. North Dakota Farmland Purchase. The investment companys single largest acquisition of farmland came in 2017 when it paid $520 million to purchase 61 properties from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). For investors who know what theyre doing, agricultural land offers financial stability in uncertain times. Amazing, if truebut its extremely not. Of course, Bill Gates is one of the world's richest billionaires.Wealth-X, a global high net worth intelligence and data company, estimates his net worth to be at least $134.1 billion. A 2014 Wall Street Journal profile of Larson, Cascade's chief investment officer, hinted at the beginning of that portfolio, after the piece noted that the firm owns 'at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and other states or an area seven times bigger than Manhattan.'. 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. In addition, the law places certain limitations on the ability of trusts to own farmland or ranchland, the letter said. Some partners in the Arizona project issued a press release touting plans to build a forward-thinking community that embraces cutting-edge technology. There was talk of high-speed digital networks and autonomous logistics hubs. That was all it took for many in the media to conclude that Gates was personally engineering the city of the future. 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. 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. (According to The Land Report, Gates owns about 27,000 acres of non-agricultural land, in addition to his farm holdings.). In a 2020 blog post, he wrote, "The rich should pay more than they currently do, and that includes Melinda and me.". The company is the largest producer of wool in Australia. But, while Belmont might not be a smart city, it still looks like a smart investment. This process is made more efficient by inoculating the seeds with the bacteria. The outlet reported this week that Gates, 65, owns 268,984 acres of land . He concentrated on third world countries, with the aim of improving health facilities, reduce diseases, poverty and the improvement of education but his real interest in Africa is a hidden agenda. Published: 23:06 GMT, 15 January 2021 | Updated: 07:04 GMT, 16 January 2021. They already face dozen other states be a smart investment bill Gates owns located. As money goes towards the foundation they already face, according to new... 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