Gates owns a small, small percentage of the arable land in the country, and there's no indication he's acquiring more. At all angles it looks like the guy who runs his investment did what a lot of wealthy people do, put some of it into land, because it's recession/inflation proof.
He's not though. He's the biggest farmland owner. He has around 250k acres - but even his ownership levels of farmland are a small percentage of the total farmland in the US - the total number of farmland in the US is 879 million acres. He has a quarter of a million. He's hardly a threat to farming, at less than one percent ownership. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of land to own, but it's more a cashcow (pun intended) because leasing it is pretty lucrative.
Corporate ownership of farmland is surprisingly low, according to everything I looked up when the "Bill Gates is buying all the farms!" meme started. The latest statistic is that 90% of all farms in the US are family owned and operated. The census, when it's released, should show updated numbers, but the whole "corporations own all the farms!" seems to be a myth pushed by the farm subsidy lobby. There's more foreign ownership of farmland - 30 million acres, that's leased to farmers.
There's more corporate ownership of acreage for lumber, than farming, if I remember correctly, and it was 8 million acres.
Gates owns a small, small percentage of the arable land in the country, and there's no indication he's acquiring more. At all angles it looks like the guy who runs his investment did what a lot of wealthy people do, put some of it into land, because it's recession/inflation proof.
Being the largest individual landowner in America is impressive no doubt. But I’m sure the largest corporate landowner puts Bill’s farm to shame.
He's not though. He's the biggest farmland owner. He has around 250k acres - but even his ownership levels of farmland are a small percentage of the total farmland in the US - the total number of farmland in the US is 879 million acres. He has a quarter of a million. He's hardly a threat to farming, at less than one percent ownership. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of land to own, but it's more a cashcow (pun intended) because leasing it is pretty lucrative.
Corporate ownership of farmland is surprisingly low, according to everything I looked up when the "Bill Gates is buying all the farms!" meme started. The latest statistic is that 90% of all farms in the US are family owned and operated. The census, when it's released, should show updated numbers, but the whole "corporations own all the farms!" seems to be a myth pushed by the farm subsidy lobby. There's more foreign ownership of farmland - 30 million acres, that's leased to farmers.
There's more corporate ownership of acreage for lumber, than farming, if I remember correctly, and it was 8 million acres.