Opinion
The Story Behind Bill Gates Owning More Farmland Than Any American Today
But he’s far from being Farmer Bill, he is a landlord
Bill Gates is in the news a lot lately, Elon Musk dragged him on Twitter after he learned that Gates is short selling the Tesla stock valued at $500 million.
Musk took it personally that he made a Bill Gates meme, that fat-shamed the tech billionaire.
His fans just went for the juggernaut of calling out Gates for his climate change agenda when they feel he is using his money to bet against Tesla, a car company trying to lessen carbon emissions.
Billionaires are weird. Well, Elon Musk just bought Twitter for $44 billion, what can I say?
But Bill Gates also had a past that he wishes we stopped talking about, his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeff Epstein, which he called an ‘error in judgment.’
His ex-wife Melinda French Gates called Epstein ‘evil personified.’
But there are a lot of fake news and conspiracy theories surrounding Bill Gates, and let’s talk about one of them.
Does Bill Gates Own the Majority of US Farmland?
On Snopes, it says it’s ‘False.’
The context being is that Gates owns less than 1% of all farmland in America. It is also not true that Gates is trying to create a food shortage to starve Americans.
The real reason why Gates is heavily invested in farmland is that he makes money from it. The world’s second-richest person wants more money.
He started investing in farmland in 2013 through different LLCs but primarily through Cascade Investments of which its main man Michael Larson was investigated for sexual harassment in 2017 according to a report from The New York Times.
Bill Gates and the company of friends he keeps speak volumes about his character.
Melinda Gates was said to be not happy with the way Bill handled the scandal. Michael Larson remains the man behind the ever-growing fortune of Bill Gates.
When asked during an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit. Bill Gates had this to say —
But while Bill Gates says that his investment and his quest to find solutions to climate change are two separate issues, you can’t help but wonder why Gates would not divest from his farmland holdings?
Now that the public knows of his vast farmland ownership, people would naturally gravitate towards conspiracy theories, especially since he wasn’t very forthcoming about his farmland investments.
In an NBC exclusive, the farmland that Gates owns grows among other things, potatoes that Mcdonald's use for their French fries, and we all know that Bill Gates wants us to be eating synthetic beef.
I don’t want to call it duplicity but it is starting to look that way.
Final words
The problem with Bill Gates’s farmland investment is that it hurts local farmers and that Gates isn’t alone.
Gates and other affluent farmland buyers have been chastised for contributing to land ownership concentration. Fewer people own farmland because they can usually outbid local farmers.
Bill Gates may offer solutions to save the world, but he can start looking at himself, the decisions he makes hurt real people, who need saving from people like him.
The conspiracy theories about Bill Gates are false.
What is true is that if he continues to buy farmland across America, he could become America’s biggest landlord meanwhile, the next generation of would-be farmers faces an uncertain future.
Sources:
The controversy over Bill Gates becoming the largest private farmland owner in the US
McDonald’s french fries, carrots, onions: all of the foods that come from Bill Gates farmland
Bill and Melinda Gates’ Empire of Dirt
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