Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and his wife now owns more farmland in the United States of America than any other person, according to Land Report.
The Land Report researchers concluded that Gates and his wife, Melinda own 242,000 acres of farmland. They own roughly 52,000 more acreages than the Offutt family, who sit at No. 2 on Land Report’s list of families who own the most farmland in the U.S.
According to The Land Report, the Microsoft co-founder owns farmland across 18 states, with the largest holdings being in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres), Arizona (25,750 acres), Nebraska (20,588 acres) and Washington state . Gates also owns a stake in more than 24,800 acres of transitional land outside of Phoenix.
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A Tri-City Herald report on the 2018 purchase of 14,500 acres of farmland in Benton County, Wash. — for a staggering $171 million — is what set The Land Report into digging further into Gates’ holdings.
According to Land Report’s research, Gates and his wife had hired former Putnam Investments bond fund manager Michael Larson in 1994 to help them diversify their personal assets.
These investments included a stake in AutoNation, the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass., the Four Seasons in San Francisco and upward of 100,000 acres of farmland in various states, Land Report Said, citing a 2014 profile of Larson in the Wall Street Journal.
Since the early 2000s, Gates and his wife have made the foray into the agriculture space through numerous investments to support farmers in the developing world.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new nonprofit group a year ago focused on providing small-scale farmers in developing countries with the tools and innovations they’ll need to deal with the effects of climate change. Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations, or Gates Ag One for short, is headquartered in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area and is focused on smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
By; Nnamdi M.