Can You Build A Wedding Venue On Residential Land? | Photo by Wikimedia Commons . So while the tech mogul certainly owns a large constellation of farms, its nowhere close to the majority nationwide. 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 in Nebraska, where farmers grow soybeans. In total, Bill and Melinda Gates have acquired land in more than a dozen states. Although the sale price has never been made public, the 492-acre home was listed for $8.9 millionand we cant imagine Bill and Melinda doing much haggling. Our exposure to Invitation Homes is owning its stock in mutual funds we manage, not buying houses w/ them, BlackRock tweeted. It can be used for residential development, commercial projects, industrial zoning, public or semi-public use, agriculture, or right of way (a way for others to access a different piece of land or portion of the land). These shell companies have made it difficult to find out where and how much farmland the Gateses own even for local farmers, like John S. Quarterman, a farmer and landowner who grows okra, corn, squash and other vegetables in Lowndes County on the southern edge of Georgia. This means that you can find good deals that may be just the thing you are looking for. Michelle, has two of its largest vineyards in that AVA: Canoe Ridge Vineyard and Columbia Crest Vineyard. Along the Columbia River border between Washington and Oregon, the Gateses purchased 100 Circles Farm, a 14,500-acre plot of land, for $171 million in 2018, according to property and business records. The map shows a 242,000 acre square situated over New York. That program ensures agriculture on the land is audited to meet standards, like soil health and water management, created by the nonprofit Leading Harvest, which counts one of the subsidiaries of Gates investment firm as a partner. Seems like there could be a lot to benefit more of their charities by selling some of this off. ', Cascade did not elaborate on the agricultural land purchases other than to say that the company is 'very supportive of sustainable farming.'. This way, the land will remain productive and healthy, while also becoming a money-driving investment. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times) (Ruth Fremson / The New York Times via Redux Pictures), John Quarterman on his farm in Lowndes County, Ga. (Matt Odom / for NBC News), John Quarterman stands by the Withlacoochee River. Besides the enrollment of their landholdings in Leading Harvest, the Gates Foundation in 2020 also created an agricultural nonprofit, Gates Ag One, which focuses on bringing affordable solutions to small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to improve crop productivity. The Case for Bill Gates: Microsoft Corp co-founder is largely considered the biggest private owner of farmland in the U.S. with nearly 270,000 acres. In north Louisiana, the Gateses investment firm owns about 70,000 acres of land through at least three other shell companies. This means that there is not much to maintain on it unless you want to add your own buildings or other property. That means Gates, whose net worth is estimated at some $134 billion. We know that one of the best ways to sequester carbon is through the soil. It makes no sense.. As more and more land becomes developed, less and less raw land is available, which potentially increases the value as demand remains the same or even increases. Both companies were founded in 2012 with the same address as Cascade Investments in Kirkland, which later changed its mailing address to a Louisiana post office box assigned to Oak River Farms, another subsidiary of Cascade. The extensive tax avoidance by these titans of industry will always far exceed their supposed charitable donations to the public. Purchased fromMadeleine Pickens, the former wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the property deal is one of the largest ever recorded in the area,The Wall Street Journalreported. The tech mogul, who is the. 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. 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. The conservation of lands is important, he said. Cascade Investments declined to comment on its interest in acquiring so much American farmland, but a spokesperson for the firm, Charles V. Zehren said it is very supportive of sustainable farming. He pointed out that in 2020, the acreage that Bill Gates firm owns was all enrolled in a sustainability program. , updated The largest. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, BillGatesbuys nearly $1B Heineken stake despite not being a big beer drinker, Bill Gates daughter living in $51M NYC home as she welcomes first baby, Elites want to use AI to censor political opponents, Bill Gates claims his private jet habit not part of the climate problem. There is a certain irony, of course, about Gates, 65, becoming the USA's biggest private owner of farmland, which American publication the Land Report recently declared him to be. He added: 'In addition, the states oldest winery, Chateau Ste. ', 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 developing world so they can lift themselves and their families out of hunger and poverty.'. He owns 242,000 acres, which is equivalent to the area of Fannin County GA. Learn more about fact-checking at AP. One of the Gates' favorite vacation homes is in the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana. Why should striking rail and postal workers get a big pay rise while our pay packets remain stagnant or worse? In total he owns 268,984 acres of land of all types in 19 states, including a suburb up for development - as a so-called 'smart city' - outside Phoenix, Arizona. He hoped Gates would have invested in different farming techniques that could help turn around the ecological damages from big agriculture. Bill Gates owns a lot of American farmland, but not the majority By PHILIP MARCELO May 2, 2022 CLAIM: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates owns the majority of America's farmland and the investment firm BlackRock holds the majority of single family houses in the country. Gates, in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit last year, said his investment group was behind the purchases, and suggested it was linked to seed and biofuel development. The land that Bill Gates owns is used to grow soybeans, corn, cotton, and rice over 70,000 acres in northern Louisiana. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. The potential is endless. retail, office buildings, hotels and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes, but he declined to provide a breakdown. But he didn't, Quarterman said. Can you imagine having that much property? Since 2017 he reportedly holds a significant stake in 24,800 acres of land on the west side of Phoenix. He owns 2m acres and has the worlds largest privately owned buffalo herd. A Grimmway Farms employee moves a water pipe at one of their carrot farms in the Antelope Valley near Lancaster, Calif., in 2004. To put that into perspective, thats nearly the size of Hong Kong and twice the acreage of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, where Im an enrolled member. While most people do not have the ability to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland like Bill Gates, anybody can look at land as an investment opportunity to take advantage of. According to the Tri-City Herald, 14,500 acres of Eastern Washington farmland was recently sold to the couple for almost $171 millionthats nearly $12,000 an acre. These purchases are also a direct result of their daughters equestrian career hopes because of Wellingtons close proximity to the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. The 13,573-square-foot home has six bedrooms, 11 bedrooms and more luxury features than you can count. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'askbamland_com-large-leaderboard-2','ezslot_5',106,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-askbamland_com-large-leaderboard-2-0'); While farmland, and land in general, will undergo economic factors and changes to demand, it is very likely to increase in value as the years roll by. Much of Turner's land is used as grazing land for over 50,000 head of buffalo the largest private herd of bison in the world. Those animals, which are sacred to my people and were nearly hunted to extinction by settlers, are preserved today on nearly 200,000 acres of Turners ranchland within the boundaries of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty territory in the western half of what is now the state of South Dakota, land that was once guaranteed by the US government to be a permanent home for Lakota people.
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. Bill Gates was also an early investor in fake-meat companies aiming to combat the environmental harms of raising livestock by creating more convincing, plant-based alternatives. . According to the Land Report 100 Research Team, that figure is currently more than twice that amount, which means Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, has an alter ego: Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America. A 2018 purchase of 14,500 acres of prime eastern Washington farmland - which is traditional. , said his investment group was behind the purchases, and suggested it was linked to seed and biofuel development. NBC News also found that another 6,500 acres in north Florida are owned by yet another company, Suwannee River Terra, which was also started with an address in Kirkland and an email address from the Bill and Melinda Gates Investment Firm, which is now registered to the current chief counsel of Oak River Farms with a mailing address in Kansas, according to property records. According to O'Keefe, Gates isn't the only one making moves on the farmland market, especially as farm real estate values nationwide increased 7% from 2020 to $3,390 per acre. The Land Report revealed that Gates, who has a net worth of nearly $121 billion according to Forbes, has built up a massive farmland . In fact it is so big that it is a little hard to conceptualize. Farmland can be an investment in several ways. By
Farmland CNBC 2.94M subscribers Subscribe 47K 4.5M views 1 year ago #CNBC Bill Gates made. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File ), Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Land holds ample opportunities for growth and development, yet you may find that there is more land than there is competition. 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.. They accounted for almost 1% of the agricultural land in the United States. Bill Gates now owns the most farmland of anyone in the United States, according to a recent report from The Land Report . The LandReport, a magazine that provides news and insight on America's landowners, recently estimated that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the largest farmland owner in the U.S., owning about 242,000 acres. BlackRock is sometimes confused w/ Blackstone, which owned Invitation Homes. There are more than 85 million single-family homes in the country, and only around 15 million of those are rentals, according to the latest American Housing Survey by the Census Bureau. Since then, weve sold to dozens of people from ATV weekend warriors to camping enthusiasts to retired truck drivers. The title for largest landholdings overall goes to US businessman John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, who owns 2.2million acres. Weve been trained by experience, land acquisition courses, and hundreds of hours meeting with county assessors and clerks, zoning officials, realtors, and land investors. askBAMLand.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Bill Gates owns more private farmland in the US than anyone else, an analysis by The Land Report found. The acquisition, however . Malone owns several ranching and real estate businesses predominantly in Maine, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. The couple also snapped up an oceanfront home in San Diego County, California, last year, for a record making $43 million. Mason notes that trying to draw hard lines between ones philanthropic work and ones investments does not work. The relationship to land who owns it, who works it and who cares for it reflects obscene levels of inequality and legacies of colonialism and white supremacy in the United States, and also the world. The billionaire says he purchased the land because they are not making it anymore.. Starting in 2012, Gates investment firm began buying family farms in South Georgia. He's one of the richest men in the world and the largest individual owner of farmland in the country. Bill Gates: America's Top Farmland Owner | The Land Report. 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. Bill Gates top private farmland owner in US. The opportunities are virtually endless. Quarterman guessed that may be because Bill Gates isnt the one doing the farming. The billionaire recently came under severe criticism from a fourth-generation farmer in South Georgia for his farmland ownership in the U.S. Will Harris, who owns a 152-year-old family farm named. Beach House in Del Mar, California: $43 Million. Properties up for grabs include a $123million mansion with a trampoline room and a $43million oceanfront mansion with a ten-person jacuzzi. Bill Gates may be trading his pocket protector for cowboy boots. When Bill Gates, or whatever other investment arm owns the land, a farmer still needs to farm it. But theyre far better known for their work in tech and in trying to save the climate. Bill Gates may no longer be the world's richest man, but he can claim a new title: America's farmland king. His 242,000 acres of farmland stretch across 18 states from Washington to Florida,. He also purchased the 800-acre Bridlewood Farms in Florida. This could give you a place to relax or to even build a small vacation home. Through our professional experience in land acquisition, we have found that people buy and sell land for many different reasons and have learned that it can be an investment for profit, vacation, or any opportunity that suits your needs and desires. Not only is it usable by you, but land can be used for so many different things. The foundation aims to support country-led inclusive agricultural transformation across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, according to its website. It can be sold as a property (or multiple properties), it can be used to produce things that people buy, or it can be rented out, like much of the farmland in the United States. BlackRock, meanwhile, is also not the owner of the majority of single family houses in the country. Not only that, but it fits in with Gates values as a philanthropist because he can keep the farmland healthy for future generations. A MAP has revealed which billionaire owns the largest amount of land in the US - youll be shocked to know that it isnt Bill Gates. In an interview with CNBC, Malone said that his biggest motivation for purchasing land was preservation and he said he hopes to buy more. Our inventory spans mostly in the western United States. Why aren't they giving more? America's leading landowners added hundreds of thousands of acres to their holdings last year. Now Bill Gates appears to have acquired a slice of their tiny city, and locals near. Right? This map shows that area as a rectangle that can be dragged. Additionally, through his personal investment firm, Cascade, Bill Gates owns approximately half of the Four Season Holdings' hotel chain. The land that Bill Gates owns is used to grow soybeans, corn, cotton, and rice over 70,000 acres in northern Louisiana. 23:06 GMT 15 Jan 2021 Bill and Melindas main residenceand by far their most impressive homeis a massive compound in Medina, Washington nicknamed 'Xanadu 2.0' in a reference to, Undisclosed Sale Price (Listed for $8.9 Million). In May, Bill Gates also transferred about $850 million in shares of the agricultural machinery company John Deere to his wife after the two shared publicly their plans to divorce. A survey of the Gateses farmland holdings shows that a broad range of the vegetables that Americans eat can be traced back to his land and that some of this land has also been owned by other billionaires. The third richest man on the planet doesnt have a green thumb. But Gates, known for his philanthropic work solving some of the worlds most pressing public health and climate problems, has suggested that he does not treat his American farmland investments as part of his broader plans to save the planet. While those companies dont explicitly name Cascade Investments as the owner in their public records, they do share the address of Cascade in Kirkland, Washington, or the address of a Cascade subsidiary, list the names of Cascade employees who registered the companies and sometimes even email addresses from the Bill and Melinda Gates Investment Group. Bill Gates now owns more farmland than anyone else in the United States, as the tech tycoon has quietly purchased 242,000 acres of farmland in several states across the country. But some farmers whose land is adjacent to that of the Gateses have expressed disappointment that despite the couples wealth, they have not done more to preserve the environment. In terms of agriculture and his practices Bill Gates, Microsoft billionaire, may be more than . Investors bought a record 18.4% of the homes purchased in the fourth quarter of 2021 three-quarters of which were single-family homes, according to real estate firm RedFin. You may also be interested in why a billionaire wants land. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Last year, Bill and Melinda purchased a sprawling beachfront 6-bedroom, 4-bath home in Del Mar, Californiaoutside of San Diegofor $43 million. It also allows you to keep a portion of the land for personal use so you do not have to give up your weekend home or relaxation property. The 1862 Homestead Act opened up 270m acres of Indigenous territory which amounts to 10% of US land for white settlement. In 2018 Gates reportedly bought about 16,000 acres in his home state of Washington, including a 14,500-acre tract in the Horse Heaven Hills region that was purchased for nearly $171 million from an insurance company that had paid $75million for it in 2010. They own the soil where the potatoes in McDonald's french fries grow, the carrots from the world's largest . They add it will take those with large parcels of land, like the Gateses U.S. farmland holdings, to do it. According to 2021 article from the Land Report, a magazine about land ownership, Gates owns approximately 242,000 . THE FACTS: As Elon Musks bid to purchase Twitter has grabbed headlines in recent days, some prominent voices have taken to social media to claim that some other significant acquisitions by deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have largely flown under the radar. For Indigenous caretakers, land use isnt premised on a return of investments; its about maintaining the land for the next generation, meeting the needs of the present, and a respect for the diversity of life. So why did the Land Report dub him Farmer Bill this year? Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. He never did anything that different from before he got here and what other farmers were doing nearby.". You just have to keep it relatively clean, mow it, and pay property taxes. Wealth accumulation always goes hand-in-hand with exploitation and dispossession. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.. While he owns a significant amount, it is a relatively small slice of the nations nearly 900 million total farm acres. They bought and later sold an additional 6,000 acres in Georgia, NBC News found. The biggest chunks of Gates holdings are in Louisiana and Arkansas, where he owns 69,071 acres and 47,927 acres, respectively, the outlets research found. Agriculture is also a key focus area for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the massive charity run by Gates and his wife. 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. Raw land is not developed. "The agriculture sector is important. Since then, it has been revealed that the two never signed a prenuptial agreement, instead opting for a separation agreement. The process of splitting the couples assets will be a mammoth task. Bill Gates is best known for revolutionizing personal computing, but lately he's gotten back to the land. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Hershey's Canada releases HER for SHE bars featuring a trans activist, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race. My investment group chose to do this, Bill Gates said on Reddit in March when asked about his farmland purchases while promoting his latest book, How to Avoid A Climate Disaster. It is not connected to climate. He did acknowledge that more productive farming techniques can help reduce deforestation in other parts of the world. A hint at Gates huge farm holdings emerged in a 2014 Wall Street Journal profile of Michael Larson, the money manager who serves as Cascades chief investment officer. These billionaires have nothing to offer us in terms of saving the planet unless its our land back. He said that this is where large tracts of rich farmland is used to raise livestock and grow many of the vegetables that end up in grocery aisles up and down the East Coast. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates finally revealed the reasons behind his massive purchase of farmland: seed science and biofuel development. In addition, the land is audited to meet sustainability standards including soil health and water management. If the land is owned by the Cascade Investment Group or Cottonwood Ag Management it is likely that Bill Gates may be one of your neighbors. Leading Harvest requires farmland owners to work to continuously improve soil health, biodiversity, and water, air and crop quality on their farms as well as contribute positively to local communities, comply with regulations, and provide a safe and respectful working environment for employees, Zehren said. But even with his big new agricultural holdings, Gates still doesn't rank in the Top 100 of private landowners overall in the U.S. - when considering owners of land of all types, not just agricultural. According to landreport.com, the Gates family has a total of 242,000 in farmland acreage in the United States. Land can produce food, fuel, and manufacturing materials as well as provide environmental services, residential spaces, and more. That's one of the many takeaways from the 2021 Land Report 100, which is compiled each year by Land Report magazine. The Microsoft co-founder faced several claims that he owned a majority of America's farmland earlier this year. Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. It just seemed like a good thing to do., 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, A map has revealed which billionaire owns the most land in the US, and it's not Bill Gates, John Malone owns about 2.2million acres of land across the United States, In comparison, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates owns about 270,000 acres of farmland, Malone is worth an estimated $9.22billion, Meet the largest landowner in the US as map reveals stunning amount of land billionaire owns and its not Bill Gates. Stan Kroenke: Land area: 1.4 million acres. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. from February that showed there were more than 895 million total acres of farmland in the country last year. I mean, it is unlikely that one of the richest people in the world would invest in something that wasnt a good investment, right? His largest holding is in Louisiana (69,071 acres), followed by Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Arizona (25,750 acres). But billionaire class assertions that they are philosopher kings and climate-conscious investors who know better than the original caretakers are little more than ruses for what amounts to a 21st century land grab with big payouts in a for-profit economy seeking green solutions. But farmer advocates say the Gateses large-scale farm purchases dont make room for smaller farmers to break into the market. Some of that land, including nearly 300 acres, was sold in 2019 to the California-based Grimmway Farms, the worlds largest carrot producer. Reed family: Land area: 1.7 million acres. In 2010 the Gates Foundation Trust invested about $23 million in Monsanto, the genetically modified seed and chemical company, though it sold its shares the next year following outcry from environmental groups. But they're just renting it. This site also participates in other affiliate programs including but not limited to ShareASale, CJ, and ClickBank, and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies. According to the Land Report 100 Research Team, that figure is currently more than twice that amount, which means Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego: Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America.