He added: 'In addition, the states oldest winery, Chateau Ste. It is not connected to climate. Thats because the old adage goes: Buy landthey arent making it anymore. (Which volcanologists know isnt exactly true, but you get the idea). He has very competent investment managers.. That makes him the largest landowner in the U.S. Stats show agriculture is a pretty good investment for billionaires. Rising temperatures could also shrink by up to 80 per cent the areas where beans will grow. 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.. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. 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. Follow Technocrats.newsfor more news and information related to Bill Gates and other big tech personalities. 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. 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. African smallholders are often isolated, unable to get credit or find buyers for their produce. That means Gates, whose net worth is estimated at some $134 billion according to Forbes annual ranking of the richest people in the country, owns less than one percent of the nations total farmland. But if it ever gets built, it would boost the value of Gates land dramatically. 4356, that would block any new agricultural purchases by companies that are wholly or partly controlled by the Chinese government and would ban existing Chinese-owned farms in the U.S. from drawing from federal agricultural support programs. The fund recently raised $1 billion, which it is pouring into companies developing hydrogen-fueled airplanes, zero-carbon building materials, and other green innovations. 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. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring told KFYR that public reaction to the purchase has been largely negative. FILE - Bill Gates attends a discussion during the 'Munich Security Conference' in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. 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. Large investors usually work with expert advisors to help them acquire and manage their agricultural holdings. They bought and later sold an additional 6,000 acres in Georgia, NBC News found. The largest parcel, a proposed 24,800-acre development known as Belmont, might someday contain 80,000 homes, along with offices, retail, industrial and logistics facilities. At least thats what the developers partnered with Gates investment group have promised. from February that showed there were more than 895 million total acres of farmland in the country last year. That means Bill Gates owns 378 square miles of the United States. Gates owns a 4.5 acre ranch in Wellington, Florida. Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest companies in the S&P 500, with a market value of $522.43 billion. The nearby community of Buckeye has grown more than tenfold in the last 20 years. Whether or not Gates personally directed Cottonwood Ag to get involved in the Leading Harvest project, the move makes both environmental and business sense. Instead, he mostly acts like a landlord and allows professional farmers to keep doing their thingeven if those practices are ruinous to the environment. 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. 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. 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. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.. Mr. How much land does he own? This is part of a broader 269,000-acre land portfolio belonging to the couple and associated entities across 19 states, with the largest holdings in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Arizona (25,750 acres). 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. The threat of climate change means smallholders must keep adapting if they are to survive and prosper, says Guei. Corporate Agriculture Against Global Hunger. A critical component in this effort must be to decarbonize the industrial sector, Gates said at the time. Amazing, if truebut its extremely not. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider While Gates appears . Bill Gates land purchases look to me more like sensible long-term holds run by experienced asset managers.. Gates is not new to the biofuel industry.In 2016, hejoined French oil giant Total in investing $14 million in biofuel specialist Renmatix. Bill Gates has started laying out his plans for creating a smart city in Phoenix, Arizona, science-news outlet Futurism wrote. In emails, BlackRock spokesman Christopher Beattie told The Associated Press that the firm. A 6,300-acre farm owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates near Columbus could be developed into one of the nation's biggest solar energy sites. The outlet reported this week that Gates, 65, owns 268,984 acres of land . In the Reddit AMA, he also said he'll sell what he owns as money goes towards the foundation. Groups of 15 to 25 smallholders are also being encouraged to form collectives. APS ASSESSMENT: False. How fitting! The same logic likely holds for Gates Arizona acquisitions. But, while Belmont might not be a smart city, it still looks like a smart investment. In 2008, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced $306 million in grants designed to boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa as well as "other parts of the . (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File ), Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Her new house is made of brick and has a tin roof and two bedrooms. *According to figures compiled by The Land Report in 2019. BlackRock, meanwhile, is also not the owner of the majority of single family houses in the country. 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. Were predicting a decline of 20 to 40 per cent in rainfall across West Africa, says David Sarfo Ameyaw of AGRA. 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. ', Cascade did not elaborate on the agricultural land purchases other than to say that the company is 'very supportive of sustainable farming. A more in-depth look at the facts makes a compelling case against the billionaire. Vous pouvez modifier vos choix tout moment en consultant vos paramtres de vie prive. 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. Leading Harvest envisions a kind of sustainability seal of approval certifying that a given farm meets environmental standards. 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. Farms also have a role in fighting climate change. Deploying high-yield . Most likely, it is just one more asset in Gates vast portfolio, quietly appreciating in value while the billionaire himself remains at arms length. owns the patent of the COVID-19 virus. Larson sees to it that Gates wealth is sensibly, even conservatively, invested. The WFP has bought 450,000 tonnes of food, worth $177 million, and the scheme is set to continue. 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. Newsweek called him a sustainable agriculture champion., Those stories dovetailed with earlier reports about Gates large land acquisitions in Arizona. She is thinking of buying land to build a house for renting, and a truck to allow her to trade her merchandise more widely. And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently launched a new division known as Gates Ag One. (According to The Land Report, Gates owns about 27,000 acres of non-agricultural land, in addition to his farm holdings.). Sales of more than a thousand acres are blue-moon events, OKeefe noted, so this one stood out. 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