Bill Gates may no longer be the world’s richest man, but he can claim a new title: America’s Farmland King.
The billionaire, co-founder of Microsoft, has become the largest owner of farmland in the United States by quietly buying up huge lots across the county, a new report says.
Gates’s portfolio includes approximately 242,000 acres of farmland and nearly 27,000 acres of other land in 19 states, according to The Land Report, a land investor magazine that tracks the country’s largest landowners.
The largest chunks of Gates’ holdings are in Louisiana and Arkansas, where he owns 69,071 acres and 47,927 acres respectively, the outlet’s survey found.
He also reportedly owns about 16,000 acres in his home state of Washington, including a 14,500 acre lot in the Horse Heaven Hills region that was purchased for nearly $ 171 million.
The land is owned both directly and indirectly by Cascade Investment, the Seattle-area company that founded Gates – the world’s third-richest man with a net worth of $ 132 billion, according to Bloomberg – to manage his massive fortune, according to Bloomberg. The Land Report.
A hint at Gates’ massive farms emerged in a 2014 Wall Street Journal profile of Michael Larson, the money manager who serves as Cascade’s Chief Investment Officer. The piece noted that the company “owns at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and other states – or an area seven times the size of Manhattan.”
It is uncertain why Gates has invested in so much farmland or how his lands are currently being used. Cascade did not immediately respond to a phone message Friday, and the company declined to comment on The Land Report “except that Cascade is a strong advocate of sustainable agriculture,” the outlet said.
Agriculture is also a major focus area for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the massive charity run by Gates and his wife. The foundation aims to “support land-led, inclusive agricultural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” according to its website.
Although Gates is America’s largest owner of farmland, he is generally far from the country’s largest land owner. That crown belongs to Liberty Media chairman John Malone, who has 2.2 million acres, according to The Land Report.
This article was first published on NYPost.com