Farm together stock11/2/2023 ![]() That’s where the Gateses began buying land in 2013 through two limited liability corporations registered to an address in Kirkland by Derek Yurosek, then head of agriculture operations for Cascade. ![]() That program ensures agriculture on the land is audited to meet standards, like soil health and water management, created by the nonprofit Leading Harvest, which counts one of the subsidiaries of Gates’ investment firm as a partner. Zehren said it is “very supportive of sustainable farming.” He pointed out that in 2020, the acreage that Bill Gates’ firm owns was all enrolled in a sustainability program. In other words, when the economy is struggling, the value of farmland generally doesn’t depreciate.Ĭascade Investments declined to comment on its interest in acquiring so much American farmland, but a spokesperson for the firm, Charles V. It’s a hedging strategy,” said Daniel Bigelow, a professor of agricultural economics at Montana State University, who previously served as a USDA research economist. “The attraction that people have to investing in farmland is that it tends to be countercyclical to the stock market. The agency further found that over 50 percent of cropland is rented to farmers who don’t own their land. Ruth Fremson / The New York Times via Redux PicturesĪdjusted for inflation, average farm real estate values have generally risen since 1993, growing from less than $1,500 an acre in the mid-’90s to over $3,000 an acre in 2020, according to the USDA. The building housing the offices of Cascade Investment in Kirkland, Wash. “If you’re looking at what this means for farmers on the ground looking to access land, there’s significant competition from nonfarmers, and that really affects young farmers because it means that the price that they’re trying to compete with on the marketplace is driven and determined by people who are not dependent on a farming income,” Rippon-Butler said. The trend worries young farmers who cannot compete with the likes of Bill Gates when buying land, according to Holly Rippon-Butler, a farmer in upstate New York and the land campaigns director at the National Young Farmers Coalition. Financial titans like Prudential and Hancock have divisions specifically for investors looking to make money on farmland portfolios. ![]() ![]() That could spell an opportunity for young farmers hoping to get their start, but for savvy investors scrambling for more places to put their money, it also represents an opportunity. Department of Agriculture, meaning more farmland is expected to come on the market soon. About 40 percent of farmland is owned by seniors 65 or older, according to 2014 estimates by the U.S. Though the Gateses are major owners of American farmland, the couple’s holdings only represent a fraction of the 283 million acres of farmland that is owned and rented out by nonfarmers. “My investment group chose to do this,” Bill Gates said on Reddit in March when asked about his farmland purchases while promoting his latest book, “How to Avoid A Climate Disaster.” “It is not connected to climate.” He did acknowledge that more productive farming techniques can help reduce deforestation in other parts of the world. Google Mapsīut Gates, known for his philanthropic work solving some of the world’s most pressing public health and climate problems, has suggested that he does not treat his American farmland investments as part of his broader plans to save the planet. The 100 Circles Farm is in Washington state, just north of the Columbia River. These land holdings are separate from their previous investments in companies that support large-scale farming like Monsanto and the tractor manufacturer John Deere. And in Florida, farmers grow carrots on their property. In Washington, the Gateses own more than 14,000 acres of farmland that includes potato fields so massive that they are visible from space and some of which are processed into french fries for McDonald’s. They bought and later sold an additional 6,000 acres in Georgia, NBC News found. Data gathered by The Land Report and NBC News show that their land holdings range from 70,000 acres in north Louisiana, where their farmland grows soybeans, corn, cotton and rice, to 20,000 acres in Nebraska, where farmers grow soybeans.
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