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.
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.