Bill Gates may not be the richest man in the world, but he can claim a new title: the king of American farmland.
Microsoft billionaire co-founder has grown to become the largest owner of farmland in the United States by quietly buying large plots across the county, a new report says.
The Gates package covers approximately 242,000 acres of farmland and nearly 27,000 acres of other land across 19 states, according to The Land Report, a magazine for land investors that monitors the largest landowners in the country.
The largest pieces of Gates holdings are in Louisiana and Arkansas, where 69,071 acres and 47,927 acres, respectively, were found, the study of the revolution found.
He also reports that he owns approximately 16,000 acres in his home state of Washington, including a 14,500-acre area in the Horse Heaven Hills area that was purchased for nearly $ 171 million.
The land is owned both directly and indirectly by Cascade Investment, the Seattle-based company owned by Gates – the third richest person in the world with a net worth of $ 132 billion, which according to Bloomberg – set to manage his huge fortunes, according to The Land Report.
Gates ’large farm holdings were advertised in the 2014 Wall Street Journal profile of Michael Larson, the money manager who serves as Cascade’s chief investment officer. The piece noted that the company owns “at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and other states – or an area seven times larger than Manhattan. ”
It is not clear why Gates has invested in so much farmland or how his tracts are currently in use. Cascade did not immediately respond to Friday’s phone message, and the company declined to comment on the Land Report “except to say that Cascade is very supportive of sustainable farming,” the service said.
Agriculture is also a key area of focus for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the large charity run by Gates and his wife. The foundation aims to “support a country-led inclusive agricultural transformation across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” according to its website.
Although Gates is the largest landowner in America, he is far from being the largest landowner in the country as a whole. That crown belongs to the chairman of Liberty Media, John Malone, who owns 2.2 million acres, according to the Land Report.
This article was originally published on NYPost.com