When it comes to alternative assets, there are a few options investors can look at such as real estate, fine art, foreign stocks, cryptocurrencies, even NFTs (verdict still out on them). Cascade Investment began purchasing farmland in significant strides in 2013. The Gates Foundation isnt the entity utilizing the land, but rather just Bills family office. Many people wonder why Bill Gates would make these moves with his investment portfolio. In reality, the idea that Bill Gates was single-handedly reinventing farming or designing cities of tomorrow was almost entirely speculation. Pour en savoir plus sur la faon dont nous utilisons vos donnes personnelles, veuillez consulter notre politique relative la vie prive et notre politique en matire de cookies. But if it ever gets built, it would boost the value of Gates land dramatically. A spokesperson for Cascade Investment a firm chaired and controlled by Bill Gates, and possibly what he was referring to as my investment group on Reddit declined to comment on specific land holdings at the time. From the beginning, Cascade Investments focused on blue chip defensive stocks, including Four Seasons, Berkshire Hathaway, Coca Cola, and more. Bill Gates land purchases look to me more like sensible long-term holds run by experienced asset managers.. That makes Invitation Homes the, largest operator of single-family rental homes in the country, but still represents, BlackRock also suggested it was being confused for the similarly-named i. nvestment management firm Blackstone, which until recently owned Invitation Homes. Where farmland differs from other alt assets is that because its such a crucial human resource (food = humans), in less-than-desirable economic situations, farmland tends to appreciate even further in value, as opposed to losing value (I.E., during a dreaded stock market crash). Cascade employees almost never speak to the press. Si vous souhaitez personnaliser vos choix, cliquez sur Grer les paramtres de confidentialit. He was right when he predicted the COVID-19 epidemic in 2015. As Slate financial writer Henry Grabar concluded, the proposed town of Belmont is not a city, nor is it smart, nor does the Microsoft founder appear to be involved in any meaningful way.. By Tim Gray. Deals are highly vetted with around a 1% acceptance rate, You pick and choose what specific farms you want to invest in, Investors do not have access to a secondary market yet, so you should be familiar with the time horizon. Most of us imagine farmers tilling the soil that has been in their families for generations. According to The Arizona Republic, Belmont is projected to include up to 80,000 homes; 3,800 acres of industrial, office, and retail space; 3,400 acres of open space; and 470 acres for public schools. Leading Harvest envisions a kind of sustainability seal of approval certifying that a given farm meets environmental standards. Much like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation uses science and technology to achieve a number of worthy goals including transitioning millions of people out of poverty, improving peoples health and well-being, and ensuring that all people have access to opportunities necessary to succeed in school and in life Cascades farmland holdings also aim to further laudable objectives. And thats where the land purchases come in. The very next year, however, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board began shedding these very same farmland assets as quickly as it had acquired them. His magazine, The Land Report, tracks major land transactions and produces an annual list of the 100 biggest US landowners. What Asset Class Is Farmland Considered To Be? In addition, over 250,000 farms are so-called factory farms owned, rented, or co-opted by corporations. the Gates Foundation answers the top ten questions they received, and they admitted that they didnt think it was fair that their family had so much global influence. Future crops may be designed to grow better in droughts, heatwaves and withstand disease. Bill Gates is an American technology pioneer. These are a few of the reasons why savvy investors have been plowing millions of dollars into farmland on both the Oregon and the Washington sides of the Columbia River Gorge. Gates who stepped down from day-to-day involvement with Microsoft in 2008 has long been looking for ways to help the worlds poorest and to address the planets environmental challenges. The problem is that it is expensive to desalinate it and move it to where it is needed, Gates wrote. Farmland Riches is sponsored by FarmTogether. Because of this crucial factor inherent to farmland, it also tends to provide better, consistent returns during times where inflation rises another scenario where more traditional assets like stocks and real estate suffer in. The Land Report tracks numerous Louisiana landowners; Angelina Agriculture is not one of them. By divesting his personal wealth from his own thriving tech company, and diversifying into myriads of other non-tech based businesses, he was not only exceptionally protected against the tech crash of 2000, but made out like a bandit. One main benefit to alt assets especially for those whore heavily invested in the stock market is you can diversify your overall investment portfolio outside the NYSE/NASDAQ. In 1999, Cascade Investment made an interesting decision: Gates sold over 7 million personal Microsoft shares to further diversify his portfolio. Talk about big bets. In it, the four-time Academy Award winner plays an over-the-hill journalist who has a nosefor a story. The current best estimate is that the modern world will run out of fossil fuels, and the ability to fuel its global fossil-fuel run infrastructure, by the year 2067. Weve never been one of the big institutional buyers of single family homes, BlackRock said in response to one tweet. Large investors usually work with expert advisors to help them acquire and manage their agricultural holdings. Gates, the billionaire tech mogul and philanthropist whose net worth was pegged by Bloomberg at $113 billion, has quietly amassed nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across the country, according. About 97% of American farms are small and medium-sized family-owned operations. And its headquarters was in you guessed it Monterey, Louisiana. The moguls holdings include large tracts in Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California, and about a dozen other states. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. , an annual survey of the nations largest landowners. Although the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has no ties whatsoever to Cascade or its investments, it also has a farmland initiative: Gates Ag One, which has established its headquarters in the Greater St. Louis area. is not a registered broker-dealer, investment adviser, or crowdfunding portal under Regulation CF. We wont even come close.. A $13.5 million purchase of a North Dakota potato farm is drawing outrage and legal scrutiny. The agriculture sector is important. Any historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections are forward looking statements and may not reflect actual future performance. Check out current deals on AcreTrader now! Some of the wealthiest landowners including Jeff Bezos, John Malone, and Thomas Peterffy are buying up forests, ranches and farmlands across . With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Along with his wife Melinda Gates, Bill owns over 268,000 acres of farmland diversified in over 19 states. And it tends to be negatively correlated against other investments, he adds: If the stock market is going down, the return on farmland is likely to be going up. Officially, the general public doesnt know exactly what Bill Gates growing farmland estate is being used for. The fund recently raised $1 billion, which it is pouring into companies developing hydrogen-fueled airplanes, zero-carbon building materials, and other green innovations. Biogas is a natural gas alternative that can be sourced from animal manure or algae., Future biofuel advancements could make farming more self-sustaining, environmentally friendly and more efficient.. And for those wondering why exactly Gates has taken a keen interest in investing in farmland across the country, look no farther than the profit margins. BlackRock also does not own the majority of the country's 80 million single-family homes. Agricultural technology advances of the future, or Agri-Tech, will create super productive seeds, sustainable biofuels and super crops. Well, as with everything in life, there is always a trade-off especially in finance. Though the Gates Foundation has spent so much time and resources on helping humanity more than any other private entity in history the sheer power their enterprise wields has drawn the attention and fear of many. While he owns a significant amount, it is a relatively small slice of the nations nearly 900 million total farm acres. The Gates Foundation has seen steady success and growth since their launch, funding science, research, agriculture and education. He also owned a 26,236-acre Louisiana farm. AcreTrader is one of the most well-established farmland crowdfunding platforms out there. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Gates Ag One will focus on research that helps small-holder farmers adapt to climate change and make food production in low- and middle-income countries more productive, resilient, and sustainable.. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. He sees Gates involvement even if indirect as crucial in encouraging the industry to embrace the new sustainability standard. But a Gates spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that the claim that hes bought the majority of the nations farmland is false, pointing to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from February that showed there were more than 895 million total acres of farmland in the country last year. Theres also a proposal to build a new interstate linking Phoenix to Las Vegas. Senior Airman Dakota C. LeGrand/U.S. By the time it was sold to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in 2013, AgCoA ranked as one of the leading institutional owners of row-crop farmland in the United States. In fact, in June of 2022 he secured an additional 2,100 acres of farmland in North Dakota for roughly $13.5 million. holding off on buying and working with what I have. Download free guide with advice for beginners. Back in January, US magazine The Land Report revealed that Bill and Melinda Gates have amassed the largest portfolio of private farmland in the US, comprising an estimated 242,000 acres. But a rep for Gates is calling these claims ludicrous. In 2018, when 100 Circles sold, it was even better. The tech mogul, who is. But a Gates spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that the claim that hes bought the majority of the nations farmland is false, pointing to. Its the first time Gates has publicly commented on land purchases made by entities associated with him and his wife Melinda since they were named as the top private owners of US farmland by acreage earlier this year. Join the conversation now on LinkedIn or Twitter, or email me at [emailprotected], Foodtech exits continue to lag, but there is cause for optimism, Bell & Evans teams with Cargill, Rodale Institute to transition 50,000 farm acres to organic. Only sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors can stroke a check for tracts in that league, which is exactly what occurred on the sell side of the 100 Circles transaction: The seller was John Hancock Life Insurance, a multibillion-dollar asset manager with key holdings in all the major U.S. markets as well as Canada and Australia. It was his last deal as a free man. Not surprisingly, one of Leading Harvests other inaugural members is a Cascade entity called Cottonwood Ag Management. Over 39% of the income generated by farmers in 2021 will come from tens of billions in government subsidy payments.. There were 895.3. Prior to this in 1999, Bill sold off tons of Microsoft stock to diversify. A spokesman for Cascade Investment declined to comment on any of the details associated with these transactions or the Gateses holdings, other than to say that Cascade is very supportive of sustainable farming. We've received your submission. In its review, the Midwest Center found that Baloo Enterprises LLC purchased: 1,926.3 acres of farmland in Douglas County for at least $19,694,096 between 2016 and 2019. Is this simply a diversification of Gates' massive tech investment portfolio? According to a press release by the Grand Forks council, Fufeng Group has chosen the town as its first US-based manufacturing facility after a 16-month comprehensive evaluation process, where they are expected to produce 25 million bushels of corn annually. Purchasing your own farm outright means that you are not diversified across many farms; just 1. Are you interested in investing in farmland? Gates is a renowned software developer, international philanthropist, noted business magnate, and investor. Currently, no one knows. In 2020, Gates made headlines for becoming the largest private farmland owner in the U.S. Bill Gates was right when he sold his own Microsoft stock to diversify through Cascade in 1994. While Bill Gates is technically the largest farmland owner in the United States, he isn't. For related content and insights from industry experts, sign up for Successful Farming newsletters. Investors bought a record 18.4% of the homes purchased in the fourth quarter of 2021 three-quarters of which were single-family homes. Even in an age of rapidly encroaching automation, it isn't, and never has been, easy being a farmer. FILE - Bill Gates attends a discussion during the 'Munich Security Conference' in Munich, Germany, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. In North Dakota, the Pembina and Walsh County farmland purchased by Red River Trust in 2021 is leased to the Campbell family which has a long history of operating these Pembina and Walsh County farmlands, which has continued under the ownership of Red River Trust.. 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Gates also owned up to the various failures in their initiatives, and admitted that they try their best to leverage the expertise and wisdom from the community leaders present in the areas they aid. Why Is Bill Gates Buying So Much Farmland? But the Microsoft tycoon is shooting down accusations that he has any ties to that company, The Post can exclusively confirm. In emails, BlackRock spokesman Christopher Beattie told The Associated Press that the firm primarily invests in retail, office buildings, hotels and apartment complexes, rather than single-family homes, but he declined to provide a breakdown. Does this investment say anything about the state of the. All Rights Reserved. As of 2020, industry reports show he owned about 0.027% of U.S. farmland. Bill Gates is best-known for cofounding Microsoft, but he's also a major US landowner, having bought 275,000 acres of farmland. Thus, before we answer these questions, we are going to provide a brief summary of his financial history. And Gates says investing in more farmland in the future is not off the table. Gates is in 49th spot but rising. NOW WATCH: Bill Gates has a net worth of over $96 billion here's how he makes and spends his money, his close friend and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett, he'll sell what he owns as money goes towards the foundation. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.. People are going to pay attention to what Bill is doing, Sherrick says. Bill Gates owns about 400 acres of farmland outside of Malmo, Nebraska, that he rents to a local farmer. Neither of these are a perfect option. AcreTrader has carved out a niche for themselves that has led to rapid market dominance. Nebraska has the third-most Gates-owned farmland in the nation. It's probably starting to make sense why Bill Gates purchased farmland in North Dakota and holds the largest private portfolio of farmland assets in America. Called Leading Harvest, the organizations goal is to create a sustainability standard that can be implemented across the greatest swath of agricultural acreage. Indian farmers tending to rice fields by hand. Many stories focused on Gates longstanding interest in climate change and sustainability and suggested those concerns might be driving the land purchases. The most famous and by far wealthiest farmland owners in sparsely populated Concordia Parish are getting a divorce. Instead, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board revealed in the fine print of a quarterly statement that it had sold $520 million in U.S. farmland assets held by Agriculture Company of America. When Ted Turner bought his Flying D Ranch in Montana in 1989, that was his personal passion, OKeefe says. In 2006, he helped launch TerraPower, a company developing a new type of compact, ultra-safe nuclear reactor. Valuations of equities (stocks) are at all time highs, similar to the dot-com bubble. Turns out that very same property had caught my eye way back when The Land Report was preparing to launch in 2006. A new coalition of farmland owners, operators and environmental groups is working to come up with verifiable standards for sustainable farming. I am quite confident that Eastwoods character, Steve Everett, would have picked up the stench from this setup a mile off: a $171 million acquisition by an LLC with two employees in a metal-sided building down a dirt road off the Bayou Teche? Back in January, US magazine The Land Report revealed that Bill and Melinda Gates have amassed the largest portfolio of private farmland in the US, comprising an estimated 242,000 acres. Bill Gates is buying up the majority of American farmland and BlackRock is buying the majority of single family houses but Im supposed to believe the biggest threat to us is Elon Musk buying Twitter? read one representative tweet thats been liked or shared on the platform more than 250,000 times. Investing in farmland is not as volatile as investing in traditional stocks. The Microsoft co-founder is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the country with some 269,000 acres across dozens of states, according to last years edition of the Land Report 100, an annual survey of the nations largest landowners. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef, he said. Adding to the confusion, Blackstone was once a major investor in BlackRock, but sold off its stake in the 1990s. The largest parcel, a proposed 24,800-acre development known as Belmont, might someday contain 80,000 homes, along with offices, retail, industrial and logistics facilities. Other questions put to Gates during his Reddit AMA session similarly touched on the sustainability of the agrifood system. Most notably, in 2017, the Gates-affiliated Mt. By using this website, you accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Gates also owned up to the various failures in their initiatives, and admitted that they try their best to leverage the expertise and wisdom from the community leaders present in the areas they aid. Malone is #1 when it comes to owning the most corporate farmland in the United States. In 2005, the former WorldCom CEO was convicted of securities fraud, conspiracy, and filing false reports that were instrumental in WorldComs $11 billion dollar accounting fraud. I scanned the headline for the umpteenth time and then read and reread the pertinent details. This is especially helpful if, say, the stock market crashed, and you had a more aggressive stock portfolio (or any large stake in stock at all). Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates responded to questions about his farmland investments during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on social media platform Reddit this weekend. buying an increasing share of the U.S. housing market. And it did this so quietly one might even say it was done in secret. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego, OKeefe wrote: Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America., The Land Report scoop made headlines. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Based in Toronto, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board began assembling an agricultural portfolio in 2013, when it acquired AgCoA, aka, Agricultural Company of America. Responding to the question, Hey Bill! Read more here. That was the missing piece of the puzzle I had been searching for as I read the Tri-City Herald story. He died on February 2 surrounded by his family. The acreage sits off Interstate 10, and it is poised to be accessible by Interstate 11, a proposed highway that would traverse 5 miles of the 40-square-mile holding. Which in turn means less impact on the environment. In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, Gates explained that zero-carbon energy sources like nuclear power are vital in reducing the emissions that warm the atmosphere. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Bill Gates owns more private farmland in the US than anyone . In addition, corporations and the rich are investing in farmland to deal with climate change and supply products to a hungry world with changing tastes.. According to a 2014 profile of Larson in the Wall Street Journal, these investments include a substantial stake in AutoNation, hospitality interests such as the Charles Hotel in Cambridge and the Four Seasons in San Francisco, and at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, and other states . According to the Land Report 100 Research Team, that figure is currently more than twice that amount, which means Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, has an alter ego: Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America. Contact Contact Land Income today. In the future, farmers will be paid for sustainability, says Sherrick, who sits on the groups board. In January this year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that its creating a nonprofit entity called Gates Ag One which will seek to speed up efforts to provide smallholder farmers in developing countries, many of whom are women, with access to the affordable tools and innovations they need to sustainably improve crop productivity and adapt to the effects of climate change.. I have invested in these farms to make them more productive and create more jobs. About 60% of the farmers in Africa and Asia, almost 3 billion people, are poverty-stricken subsistence farmers. At buildout, the Belmont development will create a brand-new metropolis, one similar in size to the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, home to Arizona State University and almost 200,000 residents. Why am I just learning about this NOW?. The world is running out of oil. By clicking Sign Up, you also agree to marketing emails from both Insider and Morning Brew; and you accept Insiders. The Gates can create worlds biggest agrifoodtech testbed but theyll need to win over farmers first. Leon Neal/Getty Images. Given the size and cost of 100 Circles, both of those figures made no sense at all. He is also the fourth richest man on planet Earth with a net worth of $125 billion. BlackRock also does not own the majority of the countrys 80 million single-family homes. Also, because youre investing in the land itself, your investment not only is quite resistant to depreciation, but also provides some solid tax benefits due to be land ownership. Gates is just using farmland to make Agri-Tech and financial investments. According to The Land Report, at the time, Gates had a total of 268,985 acres, almost all of which is active farmland. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates owns a majority of America's farmland. Whether or not Gates personally directed Cottonwood Ag to get involved in the Leading Harvest project, the move makes both environmental and business sense. Investors bought a record 18.4% of the homes purchased in the fourth quarter of 2021 three-quarters of which were single-family homes, according to real estate firm RedFin. has grabbed headlines in recent days, some prominent voices have taken to social media to claim that some other significant acquisitions by deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have largely flown under the radar. CSC Leasing: Non-dilutive Funding for AgTech Startups, Americas Cultivation Corridor: We Grow AgTech Innovation, largest portfolio of private farmland in the US, replace their consumption of cattle-derived beef, How to implement digital agriculture, step-by-step, The Week in AgriFoodTech: Restaurant order app me&u bagged $30m, Remilk approved for Israeli markets, biomaterials bonanza, First Bite: Better Bite Ventures backs four early-stage APAC alt protein startups, from cauliflower ice cream to cultivated seafood. Tens of thousands of acres? The buyer, Red River Trust, is tied to Bill Gates . He's the new MacDonald: Bill Gates owns hundreds of thousands of acres across the United States including 242,000 acres of farmland making him the country's top agricultural landholder,. (According to The Land Report, Gates owns about 27,000 acres of non-agricultural land, in addition to his farm holdings.). In his annual Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Wednesday, Gates was asked why he has made all of his farmland purchases. Today, the Belmont tract remains mostly empty desert. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. It, too, was sold, on September 25, 2006, the day before Ebbers began serving his sentence at the Oakdale Federal Correctional Institution. Bill Gates is about to change the way America farms The cofounder of Microsoft and his wife make an auspicious debut on the 2020 LAND REPORT 100, as America's largest private farmland owners. This parcel which apparently makes up the bulk of the Gatess farmland holdings had previously belonged to Agriculture Company of America, a real estate investment trust acquired by CPIBB in 2013. seed technologies, super-crops and overall farming efficiencies. Merged from the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation quickly became the largest private foundation in history. However, there are also countless farmland investing platforms gaining traction now too. Featured in the agricultural side of their plan is a strategy for subsistence farmers and other small-acre farms in Africa and the developing world education, resources, and layaway payment plans which can be used through smartphones. Gates responded: "I own less than 1/4000 of the farmland in the US. ", Gates responded at the time, "My investment team bought the farmland. Super-crops are genetically modified seeds, crops and livestock to maximize as much yield as possible. Gate's private American farmlands are worth an estimated $690 million.. And the rich are now buying up vast swathes of farmland. Gates is a renowned software developer, international philanthropist, noted business magnate, and investor. But some of the software pioneers investments do reveal his grander goals. The $68.5 million that Kroenke Ranches paid was applied to Ebberss IOU.

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