Report: Bill Gates is the largest owner of private farmland in the United States, with acreage in 18 states

A new report on the largest owners of private farmland in the United States finds Bill and Melinda Gates topped the list, with the Seattle billionaire couple amassing 242,000 acres of land.

According to The Land Report, the Microsoft co-founder owns farmland in 18 states, with the largest operations being in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres) and Nebraska (20,588 acres). Gates also owns an interest in more than 24,800 acres of transitional land outside of Phoenix.

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 drove the Land Report and editor Eric O’Keefe to delve into the properties of Gates.

Research indicated that the land in the United States is owned by Cascade Investment LLC, Gates’ private investment vehicle. Gates also supports online used car dealer Vroom via Cascade as well as the Canadian National Railway Company.

A spokesperson for Cascade Investment declined to comment to The Land Report on details associated with Gates’ transactions or holdings, except to say that Cascade is very supportive of sustainable agriculture.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new nonprofit group a year ago to provide smallholder farmers in developing countries with the tools and innovations they will need to cope with the effects of climate change. Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations, or Gates Ag One for short, is headquartered in the greater Saint Louis metropolitan area and focuses on smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Gates’ interest in sustainability also extends to his investment in Impossible Foods, which makes “meat” from plants.

Gates is currently No. 3 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $ 132 billion.

Forbes pointed out in his Gates Farmland report that he wasn’t even in the Land Report’s top 100 when it came to individual landowners. This list is completed by John Malone of Liberty Media, with 2.2 million acres of ranches and forests. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is on that list at No. 25 with 420,000 acres, mostly in West Texas, where he’s busy launching a spaceship for Blue Origin.