News reports from the last several years suggest that Gates has at different times invested in start-ups focused on developing artificial or plant-based alternatives to meat, such as Natures Fynd, Hampton Creek, Memphis Meats, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Best Farmland Investing Platforms Non-Accredited, Best Canadian Farmland Investing Platforms. State law prohibits corporations, LLCs, and trusts from farming or ranching activities. Either that or I had a screw loose. Who owns the most farmland in the world? Also, because youre investing in the land itself, your investment not only is quite resistant to depreciation, but also provides some solid tax benefits due to be land ownership. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos . The tech billionaire owns 69,071 acres in Louisiana, 47,927 acres in Arkansas, and 20,588 acres in Nebraska. Other factors are pandemic-related supply chain issues andholiday demand. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider With all of this recent farmland accumulation, one might think Gates is using this land to research these gene edited super seeds. In a March 2021 "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit, Gates was asked why he had purchased so much farmland. There isn't some grand scheme involved - in fact, all these decisions are made by a professional investment team.. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates owns a majority of America's farmland. Lower-than-usual egg inventories near the end of the year, when demand is up from holiday baking, resulted in several successive weeks of record-high egg prices, the department said. Some social media users are claiming recent national chicken and egg supply shortages are the culmination of a decadelong plot by Gates. Why Is Bill Gates Buying So Much Farmland? Talk about big bets. In addition, he owns 25,750 acres of transitional land and 1,234 acres of recreational land for total land holdings of 268,984 acres. According to Redfin, single-family housing represented over 70% of the properties purchased by investors in the third quarter of 2021 (here). Download free guide with advice for beginners. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland. We need your help. Billionaire Bill Gates reportedly shopped for 'hundreds of acres of farmland' in Turkey while vacationing aboard a superyacht that emits an estimated 19 tons of CO2 a day before heading to the . This article will go into detail about how much land Bill Gates owns and why he owns so much. Nancy Pelosi (purchased) 10,000 shares of Amgen, manufacturer of Nplate, a drug used to treat radiation sickness.. But these companies do not own a majority of U.S. single-family homes. Wonderful Company cofounders Stewart and Lynda Resnick (net worth: $7.1 billion) ranked number three . Youre not investing in a building that will decay over time, but the rich farmland itself. 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. Farmland REITs have a high degree of correlation with the overall stock market, and returns tend to be lower than less liquid farmland investments. (here). Gates, currently the sixth-richest person in the world, has a net worth of $111 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Today, Bill Gates owns 242,000 acres of farmland in 19 states. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. A $13.5 million purchase of a North Dakota potato farm is drawing outrage and legal scrutiny. Gates does not own the majority of U.S. farmland. Bill left most of his professional work at Microsoft at this time to work with Melinda and the foundation. Here in Michigan, roughly 1.35 million acres of ag land is held by foreign investors and nearly 90% of this land is in forests. 20006, Florida He created the pledge in 2010 with his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, and his close friend and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett. The Gates Foundation has focused their efforts on alleviating the aftermaths of climate change since its founding. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Accessed 28 Apr. In reality, the number of fires was not extraordinary, the causes of the fires were not unusual, and the damage caused by the fires was minimal. From the beginning, Cascade Investments focused on blue chip defensive stocks, including Four Seasons, Berkshire Hathaway, Coca Cola, and more. Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates has found himself at the center of yet another online conspiracy theory. Bill GatesWith almost 269,000 acres, Bill Gates retained his ranking as Americas largest private farmland owner. Bill Gates The North Dakota attorney general's office recently inquired into a 2,100-acre farmland purchase by Red River Trust, an entity affiliated with Bill Gates. These subsistence farmers can order equipment and seeds they need, paying what they can over a longer period of time. 3. Featured in the agricultural side of their plan is a strategy for subsistence farmers and other small-acre farms in Africa and the developing world education, resources, and layaway payment plans which can be used through smartphones. 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. 41 on The Land Report's 2022 list of Americans who own the most land. In the same way you can invest into ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) in the stock market, there exist similar products for farmland called farmland REITs. How can this inform our personal investment decisions? In this short period of time, there was a proliferation in funds that were specifically focused on farmland investing. The Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) is a public authority that owns and manages approximately 100,000 parcels of property in the City of Detroit making it the citys largest landowner.Detroit Land Bank Authority. Some of the biggest critics of Gates have deemed his philanthropy as a budding technocracy a tyranny of experts that both centralizes power into a private corporations interests. North Dakotans are outraged as Bill Gates, the largest private farmland owner in the US, apparently buys a $13.5 million potato farm Dominick Reuter Jun 24, 2022, 8:13 AM Leon Neal/Getty. In the Reddit AMA, he also said he'll sell what he owns as money goes towards the foundation. Gates-affiliated ownership covers vast swaths of farm and timberland, estimated to be 69,071 acres in all by niche land ownership publication The Land Report. Neither of these are a perfect option. Gates appears to be pro-chicken farming. . Nov 14, 2022. This isn't the first time Gates has called for higher taxes on the wealthy. KX News' Josh Meny sat down with Vogel who says the Attorney General's office is impeding her investigation into the purchase. Social media post scrambles the facts on high egg prices, Bill Gates Invested In Artificial Eggs a Decade Before Egg Shortage, Bill Gates is About to Change the Way America Farms, What the plow and lab-grown meat tell us about innovation, Avian influenza outbreaks reduced egg production, driving prices to record highs in 2022, 2022-2023 Confirmations of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Commercial and Backyard Flocks, Bill Gates owns a lot of American farmland, but not the majority, The controversy over Bill Gates becoming the largest private farmland owner in the US, McDonald's french fries, carrots, onions: all of the foods that come from Bill Gates farmland, Fact Check-Bill Gates doesnt own most U.S. farmland; BlackRock doesnt own most houses, Bill Gates and Richard Branson are betting lab-grown meat might be the food of the future, Bill Gates bets on growing demand for sustainable foods, Lab-Grown Meat Backed by Gates, Tyson Foods Faces U.S. 33701 But unlike those men, Gilbert has plans to redevelop his properties and not just sit on them. According to 2021 article from the Land Report, a magazine about land. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Other noteworthy farmland investors include Ted Turner and Thomas Peterffy. Corn production is concentrated in the Lower Peninsula with Saginaw and Lenawee counties as Michigans largest producers. The . Hes also written about the need for more ways to produce meat without depleting environmental resources. Try the tool that will help you invest smarter, faster, and better. These allow investors to get stared with as little as $10,000. He responded that it was a decision his investment group made. Instead, he mostly acts like a landlord and allows professional farmers to keep doing their thingeven if those practices are ruinous to the environment. This, combined with holiday demand and continued coronavirus pandemic-related supply-chain pressures, have affected the market. Agfundernews.com, a website about agricultural investments, reported in 2021 that Gates' investments were part of a broader trend that started after the financial crisis of 2008, as investors looked for reliable returns. In January 2021, Bill Gates became the largest owner of farmland in the United States. The Agriculture Department has said the avian flu outbreak in the U.S. is the main contributor to low inventory and high prices. Data gathered by The Land Report and NBC News show that their land holdings range from 70,000 acres in north Louisiana, where their farmland grows soybeans, corn, cotton and rice, to 20,000 acres . As of the latest Rental Housing Finance Survey (2018), there were 19.955 million rental properties in the United States (bit.ly/3FdPtKZ), 17.16 million of them single unit rental properties (bit.ly/3KLCjWH). Officially, the general public doesnt know exactly what Bill Gates growing farmland estate is being used for. The Justice Department has been calling parents that are concerned about what their kids are being taught, they are labeling them terrorists., Sen. Marco Rubio signed a 2021 letter that supports waivers that would reduce visual track inspections.. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. What special interest does Bill Gates have in farmland? That's a ginormous deal, one that pencils out to almost $12,000 per acre for a whole lot of acres. Recently, NBC News reported that Bill Gates along with his estranged wife Melinda Gates had acquired more than 269,000 acres of farm in the United States in the past 10 years. By Dec. 31, 2022, the Agriculture Department reported 43 million egg-laying hens had died because of the disease or depopulation. Real estate investors overall have also been increasingly targeting single-family homes. Theres a lot of little benefits that stack up when talking about farmland, but the biggest is likely the fact that farmland returns historically out performs most other investment vehicles, and is also comparatively the least volatile asset among the bunch. Just over 70% of these were owned by individual investors. Gates started purchasing farmland circa 2013 through his investment group, Cascade Investments. Bill Gates and his estranged wife Melinda Gates have accumulated more than 269,000 acres of farmland across 18 American states. The No. An entity linked to billionaire Bill Gates has reportedly purchased 2,100 acres of potato farmland in northern North Dakota angering local residents. Where farmland differs from other alt assets is that because its such a crucial human resource (food = humans), in less-than-desirable economic situations, farmland tends to appreciate even further in value, as opposed to losing value (I.E., during a dreaded stock market crash). Eggs have become expensive and scarce in some parts of the country. The land was purchased from the owners of Campbell Farms, a potato farming group headquartered in Grafton, North Dakota, approximately 50 miles from the Canadian border. Bill Gates just bought almost 3,000 more acres of farmland in North Dakota, a purchase that was eventually cleared by the North Dakota Attorney General even though it raised numerous questions about his intentions and why he has been buying up over a hundred thousand acres of American farmland. What Asset Class Is Farmland Considered To Be? During his 11th appearance in the "Ask Me Anything" . Bill Gates reportedly owns more farmland than anyone else in the United States. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. By 2019, the USDA says foreign ownership of U.S. acres exceeded 35.2 million acres, a 60 percent increase from the decade prior. What they are doing locking up land, not just private land, but in Wilderness Areas, National anything to do with land, Conservation programs that literally pay farmers, dairymen, etc. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. While Gates is still the top farmland owner in the U.S., not all of the property he owns is farmland. When it comes to alternative assets, there are a few options investors can look at such as real estate, fine art, foreign stocks, cryptocurrencies, even NFTs (verdict still out on them). To better understand these questions, it's helpful to review Bill Gates' financial decision through the years, especially as it relates to Microsoft, Cascade Investments, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other examples can be seen (here), (here). NOW WATCH: Bill Gates has a net worth of over $96 billion here's how he makes and spends his money. Investors from the Netherlands own 33% of that land with Canadians owning 25%. An ingredient in some of Chick-fil-As dipping sauces can cause serious health problems. While this is certainly a lot of acreage, it represents less than 1% of all the farmland in the United States. The publication named Gates the countrys largest private farmland owner in 2020, 2021 and 2022. 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. Interestingly enough, though the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on this agriculture initiative. Social media users are falsely claiming that Gates owns the majority of U.S. farmland. While the global climate change initiative is trying to reduce total emissions by the year 2050, the year 2030 is also important. Photo of electric charging station powered by diesel generator is emblematic of the electric vehicle movement. Accessed 28 Apr. Now Chinese companies and businessmen are planning to make their home in the United States. Here are a few likely reasons why Bill Gates is scooping up farmland: Whatever you may think about the man himself, he has consistently made investing choices that brought him unusual and incredible returns, and this has brought him great wealth when others made the wrong fiscal moves, and lost much. Gates farmland now totals 242,000 acres. Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. The financial crisis later in that same decade prompted an explosion of investments into farmland when monetary safe havens became scarce. Bill Gates speaks during the Global Fund's Seventh Replenishment Conference, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, in New York. Gates also owns land in Arizona (25,750 acres), Illinois (17,940),Mississippi (16,963),Washington (16,097), Florida (14,828), Idaho (9,233), Indiana (9,136), Ohio (8,915), California (4,509), Colorado (2,270), Michigan (2,167), Wisconsin (1,188), Wyoming (975), North Carolina (874), Iowa (552), and New Mexico (1). This is a sponsored promotion for the AcreTrader platform. Perhaps history is repeating itself? Read also:Which Billionaire Owns The Most Land In The U.S.? as well as other partner offers and accept our. 2022. While Gates is still the top farmland owner in the U.S., not all of the property he owns is farmland. It reported that as of 2022, Gates owned about 248,000 acres of farmland. Though the Gates Foundation has spent so much time and resources on helping humanity more than any other private entity in history the sheer power their enterprise wields has drawn the attention and fear of many. The report states that Gates has 70,000 acres of land in North Louisiana where they grow soybeans, corn, cotton. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is America's top private farmland owner. In 1999, Cascade Investment made an interesting decision: Gates sold over 7 million personal Microsoft shares to further diversify his portfolio. The current chicken and egg shortages trace mainly to an avian flu outbreak in the U.S. that began in early 2022 and was exacerbated by holiday demand and supply chain problems, the Agriculture Department reported. While much of this land was transferred to the new state of Hawaii in 1959, the federal government did keep some. By Jenna Hoffman July 5, 2022. The agriculture sector is important. Bill Gates gobbling up Florida farmland; investment arm recently paid $28M for 4,500-acre tract. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) (here), using data of the Rental Housing Finance Survey, between 2001 and 2018 the proportion of rental properties owned by non-individual investors, which include partnerships, trustees for estate, real estate corporations, real estate investment trusts, and other entities, increased from 18% to 26%. One main benefit to alt assets especially for those whore heavily invested in the stock market is, another scenario where more traditional assets like stocks and, Also, because youre investing in the land itself, your investment not only is quite resistant to depreciation, but also provides some, Theres a lot of little benefits that stack up when talking about farmland, but the biggest is likely the fact that, American farmland produces a lot of exports, exposing you to political risks, Its a little harder to break into farmland than other assets, though this is changing, In the same way you can invest into ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) in the stock market, there exist similar products for farmland called, Bill and Melinda released their latest initiative, , While the global climate change initiative is trying to reduce total emissions by the year 2050, the year 2030 is also important. what county is apple pie ridge located in wv,