From: Business Weekly Chinese version
According to the latest report from Associated Press , Microsoft founder Bill Gates has just received legal approval, allowing him to purchase North Dakota 100 acres worth of $13.5 million ( 1 acre is approximately 6 acres) of farmland. At this point, the land territory of Gates has expanded again.
In fact, Bill Gates’ purchase of farmland has been a hot topic for a long time. The matter once caused dissatisfaction among local residents and led to the intervention of the state’s top prosecutor. According to data released by the 2021 "Land Report 100", Gates has purchased agricultural land in more than a dozen states in the past few years, including 242,000 acres of farmland, 1,234 acres of recreational land and 25,750 acres of other land. is transitioning from farmland to residential and commercial use. reported that the North Dakota acquisition will bring its total land holdings to more than 270,000 acres, an area almost as large as the entire Hong Kong and worth three Berlins.
reported that Gates purchased agricultural land in Louisiana (69,000 acres), Arkansas (48,000 acres), Nebraska (more than 20,000 acres), Arizona (more than 25,000 acres) Acres), Mississippi , Indiana , Washington state and the southern states of Florida . The National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) reported that these lands spread across nearly 20 states include farmland for growing vegetables such as carrots, soybeans, and potatoes. In Washington, the Gateses once owned more than 14,000 acres of farmland, including huge potato fields that can be seen from space, some of which are processed into McDonald's French fries. In Florida , farmers grow carrots on their land.
According to the USDA, average farm property values have generally increased since 1993, when adjusted for inflation , from less than $1,500 per acre in the mid-1990s to more than $3,000 per acre in 2020. The agency further found that more than 50% of farmland is leased to landless farmers.
"The attraction for people to invest in farmland is that it tends to be countercyclical to the stock market. It's a hedging strategy ." Montana State University Agricultural Economics, a former USDA research economist Professor Daniel Bigelow said. In other words, when the economy is in recession, the value of farmland generally does not depreciate.
NBC reports that Bill Gates’ farmland was purchased through a series of companies. In each state where the Gates family owns land, there is an intricate network of locally registered limited liability companies, and these companies have There are ties to Cascade Investments, the investment group of divorced Bill Gates and his wife, based in Kirkland, Washington. While the companies do not explicitly list Cascade Investments as the owner in their public records, they do share Cascade's address in Kirkland, Washington or the addresses of Cascade subsidiaries, list the names of Cascade employees who registered the companies, and sometimes even from Email address for Bill and Melinda Gates Investment Group.
Cascade Investments declined to comment for this story, but company spokesman Charles V. Zehren said the company "strongly supports sustainable agriculture." He pointed out that in 2020, all the land owned by Bill Gates' company was integrated into a sustainable development project. The project, which ensures agriculture on the land is audited to meet standards such as soil health and water management, was created by the nonprofit Leading Harvest, in which a subsidiary of Gates Venture Partners is a partner.
Zehren said: “Leading Harvest requires farmland owners to continuously work to improve the soil health, biodiversity, water, air and crop quality of their farmland, and to make a positive contribution to local communities, comply with regulations, and provide safe and respectful employees. The working environment of others.”
According to the report of “Forbes”, this is not Gates’ first time involved in agriculture. In 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a grant of US$306 million to promote high-yield, sustainable agriculture among sub-Saharan smallholder farmers in South Asia. The foundation is also further investing in the development and promotion of climate change-resistant “super crops” and high-yielding dairy cows. In 2020, the organization announced the formation of Gates Ag One, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing these efforts.
US media reported that although Gates is the largest private owner of farmland in the United States, he is not the largest land owner in the United States. The largest land owner in the United States is another person-billionaire John Malone , known as the "Godfather of American Cable TV". He owns 2.2 million acres of land in the United States.
In addition, the well-known Amazon e-commerce giant Jeff Bezos also owns 420,000 acres of land. In addition to cultivated land, there are also a large number of forests and uncultivated land. American media giant Ted Turner, and American businessman Thomas Peterfield, whose wealth ranks 84th on the Bloomberg Global Billionaires list, are among the top landowners in the United States. It can be seen that the big landowners are all super rich.
