Bill and Melinda Gates largest private farmers in US
Bill and Melinda Gates have emerged as the biggest private farmers in the US. How much farmland do they own and how does it compare to Australia?
MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have emerged as the biggest private farmers in the US.
According to The Land Report, the magazine of the Realtors’ Land Institute, the Gates family owns 98,000 hectares of farmland across 18 states of the US through a company they own called Cascade Investment.
That includes a 5800ha sweet corn, wheat and potato farm on rich soils on the Columbia River in Washington state, which they paid $US171 million ($222 million) for in 2018.
Most of the land was acquired in 2017 from the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board for $US520 million ($675 million).
The Land Report reported that Cascade Investment was “supportive of sustainable farming”.
It said Cascade Investment had no ties to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Gates empire whose objectives include alleviating poverty in poor nations around the world.
The Gates family’s farmland ownership pales into insignificance compared to some of Australia’s wealthiest families.
Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart owns 9.7 million hectares in Australia, but part of that is in partnership with a Chinese group.
The MacLachlan family’s Jumbuck Pastoral Company holds 4.9 million ha — 20 times the size of the Bill and Melinda Gates’ US landholdings.
South Australia’s Williams family owns 6.54 million ha through its Williams Cattle Company and David and Nell Brook’s family run 3.5 million ha across South Australia and southern Queensland.
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