A new report on the largest owners of private agricultural land in the United States reveals that Bill and Melinda Gates are at the top of the list, with the billionaire Seattle couple gathering 242,000 acres of land.
According to The Land Report, the co-founder of Microsoft owns agricultural land in 18 states, with the largest businesses in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Nebraska (20,588 acres). Gates also owns a stake in more than 24,800 acres of transitional land outside of Phoenix.
A Tri-City Herald report on the purchase of 14,500 acres of farmland in Benton County, Washington, in 2018 – for a staggering $ 171 million – is what further put The Land Report and editor Eric O’Keefe in Gates’ interest has.
Research has shown that the country is owned across the US by Cascade Investment LLC, Gates’ private investment vehicle. Gates also supports the online seller of used cars Vroom by Cascade as well as the Canadian National Railway Company.
A spokesman for Cascade Investment declined to comment on The Land Report on any details related to the transactions or the ownership of Gates, other than to say that Cascade strongly supports sustainable farming.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new non-profit organization a year ago aimed at giving small-scale farmers in developing countries the tools and innovations they need to deal with the effects of climate change. Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations, or Gates Ag One, is headquartered in the greater metropolitan area of St. Louis. Louis and is focused on smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Gates’ interest in sustainability also extends to his investment in Impossible Foods, which makes’ meat ‘from plants.
Gates is currently No. 3 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $ 132 billion.
Forbes pointed out in his report on agricultural land in Gates that he does not even reach The Land Report’s top 100 when it comes to individual landowners. The list tops Liberty Media’s John Malone’s, with 2.2 million acres of farms and forests. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tops the list at No. 25 with 420,000 acres, mostly in West Texas, where he is launching spacecraft for Blue Origin.