Bill Gates Is This Country’s Biggest Farmland Owner – TIDEWATER
This article was beforehand printed January 25, 2021, and has been up to date with new info.
Knowledge is energy. So is possession, together with land possession. Did you realize that Bill Gates is America’s high farmland investor? This quick video reveals lots of the world methods Gates has been utilizing to affect your well being and the meals provide.
Through his founding of the second-largest technological firm on this planet,1 Gates has developed monetary and influential relationships with highly effective organizations accountable for many world choices that have an effect on your life.
Subtly, and typically not so subtly, his actions have grown a large monetary empire and expanded his capability to create change to assist his objectives. Gates can also be a supporter of the “Great Reset” that guarantees “social cohesion, fairness, inclusion and equality,”2 whereas permitting elite billionaires to follow methods that grew his and different billionaires’ wealth by 26% throughout the pandemic in 2020.3
In different phrases, whereas supporting Marxist rules to unfold the wealth — so by 2030 you may say, “I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy and Life Has Never Been Better”4 — he’s having fun with the fruits of his labor by accumulating extra wealth and property, a decidedly totally different method to the Great Reset he promotes.
Put plainly, the political and ideological foundations of Marxism have as soon as once more surfaced, and in some arenas, are celebrated. However, it is vital to do not forget that not like Walgreens’ promoting marketing campaign that includes a picture-perfect city of “Perfect,”5 Marxist philosophy has created tyranny and was accountable for the deaths of greater than 100 million folks within the final century, as aptly described by James Bovard in USA Today.6
History is studied and shared so the errors of the previous will not be repeated. However, it’s evident there are lots of who’ve forgotten, or by no means discovered, what resulted behind the Iron Curtain from implementing the socialist rules which now underpin The Great Reset.
The Great Reset or Fourth Industrial Revolution has sturdy supporters amongst rich technocrats who won’t redistribute their very own wealth, however will solely proceed to develop their monetary empires as the remainder of the world suffers. Indeed, 2020 has solely been a style of what may come as extra folks lose their jobs and monetary safety, whereas these controlling the occasion grow to be wealthier.
Bill Gates Is Now the Biggest Farmland Owner
The Land Report introduced that multibillionaire Bill Gates presently holds the title as America’s greatest personal farmland proprietor. He owns 242,000 acres, practically 52,000 greater than the following largest farmland proprietor.7 To put this in perspective, 52,000 is the same as 39,325 soccer fields, together with the tip zones.8 His farmland (roughly 378.125 sq. miles) would rank in complete land mass because the eighth largest metropolis within the U.S. in 2010.9
It was Eric O’Keefe from the Land Report10 who ferreted out the story after studying that 14,500 acres of selection farmland in Benton County, Washington, had been offered for $171 million, or practically $12,000 per acre. O’Keefe describes the world as “some of the richest farmland in the Lower 48,” that “savvy investors have been plowing millions of dollars into.”11
Although the vendor was listed as John Hancock Life Insurance, the customer was reported as a restricted legal responsibility firm from Louisiana. Digging deeper and fascinating their analysis workforce, he found the paper path led to an organization managed by Michael Larson, supervisor of the Gates’ private portfolio and far of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the final 25 years.
Larson primarily makes use of Cascade Investment LLC because the entity by means of which he manages their private portfolio. O’Keefe particulars the sequence through which the land modified arms over 10 years. The largest single block of farmland was quietly acquired by Cascade in 2017, one 12 months after it was bought by a Canadian agency.12
The sale was revealed within the Canadian agency’s quarterly assertion, through which they reported offloading $520 million in farmland provided in a single block. An investigative journalist in the end discovered the half-billion-dollar sale led to Cascade Investment LLC.
Gates Is Not the Largest Individual Landowner
Gates owns a considerable quantity of land, for a complete of 268,894 acres when you depend his transitional and leisure properties. But, he is not the one billionaire who tops the Land Report checklist. Stewart and Lynda Resnick, co-founders of Wonderful Company, are available in at No. 2, proudly owning 190,000 acres. They use their farmland to assist their meals merchandise, corresponding to Wonderful Pistachios and Wonderful Halos Mandarin oranges.13
Gates additionally isn’t the most important particular person landowner total, as that spot goes to John Malone, chairman of the board at Liberty Media Corporation and former chief government officer for Tele-Communications Inc.14 Malone owns 2.2 million acres of forest and ranch land; media Mogul Ted Turner owns 2 million throughout eight states.15
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos can also be closely invested in land, coming within the twenty fifth spot at 420,000 acres situated largely in Texas.16 The remaining checklist is full of recognizable names, together with the King Ranch, Ford household and the Kennedy Memorial Foundation.17
In addition to farmland, Cascade Investment has bought 24,800 acres of transitional property west of Phoenix, which is poised for metropolis growth projected to incorporate: “as much as 80,000 properties; 3,800 acres of business, workplace and retail house; 3,400 acres of open house; and 470 acres for public faculties.”18
Cascade additionally purchased 1,234 leisure acres, making the land Gates owns by means of simply Cascade Investment LLC at 268,984 acres. Separate from the Gates’ private holdings is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has no ties to Cascade, however does have a farmland initiative known as Gates Ag One, which19
“… aims 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.”
What Is the Leading Harvest Standard?
Although Cascade Investment has declined to make any touch upon the quiet transactions by means of the Canadian firm, they’ve come out in assist of sustainable farming. One of the entities owned by Cascade, Cottonwood Ag Management, is an preliminary member of Leading Harvest, a nonprofit group fashioned to advance:20
“… sustainable agriculture, providing assurance programs comprised of standards, audit procedures, training and education, and reporting and claim offerings that are optimized for flexibility, scalability, and impact.”
As O’Keefe describes it, the aim is to create a “sustainability standard that can be implemented across the greatest swath of agricultural acreage.”21 Yet, whereas this aim is commendable, they continue to be phrases on paper with no substantive basis.
In different phrases, in line with the group, they don’t supply farmers steerage to realize the aim, solely the formation of a certification program to audit the farmers’ outcomes.22 In their publication, they describe this system:23
“It doesn’t prescribe practices essential to evolve with the Standard; moderately, it offers household farmers and farm managers the flexibleness to pick out finest practices for sustainable outcomes. This method permits for adaptation throughout crops and geographies, recognizing that even a single crop can require distinctive administration methods in several areas.
An outcome-based method acknowledges that prescribing the identical processes and metrics throughout geographies might be ineffective. By encouraging farmers to innovate new approaches and apply finest administration practices suited to their crops and per regional finest practices, administration outcomes are improved, and better sustainability outcomes are achieved.”
In different phrases, as an alternative of steerage and requirements for the way the farmer achieves sustainability and protects the way forward for farming, they created a certification for farmers to exhibit their participation in growing practices the place the tip outcome meets their normal — do the ends justify the means?
Gates Seeking Sustainable Energy in All the Wrong Places
Gates has been calling for sustainable power and a discount of carbon emissions for over a decade.24 At one level in a 2010 TED speak, he questioned if we want one other Manhattan Project to find a renewable and protected power supply.
If you do not bear in mind, the Manhattan Project was the code title given to an operation aimed toward discovering a useful nuclear weapon,25 that resulted in a bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. When requested how he would take care of local weather change skeptics, he stated:26
“The main problem we have here — it’s kind of like with AIDS: You make the mistake now, and you pay for it a lot later. And so, when you have all sorts of urgent problems, the idea of taking pain now that has to do with a gain later, and a somewhat uncertain pain thing.”
Gates spoke about local weather change and the technological developments which may be essential in an interview with a journalist from The Atlantic in 2015. The journalist recorded this response:27
“Yes, the government will be somewhat inept,” he stated brusquely, swatting apart one objection as a trivial assertion of the apparent. “But the private sector is in general inept. How many companies do venture capitalists invest in that go poorly? By far most of them.”
Gates Calls Plant-Based and Lab-Grown Meat Sustainable
While Gates might not assume extremely of the federal government or entrepreneurs, he does imagine that plant-based and lab-grown meat options are wholesome and sustainable. Historically, among the choices from the Gates Foundation haven’t been centered on the surroundings however, moderately, cloaked in rhetoric that seems environmentally pleasant.
For instance, regardless of a scarcity of consensus on GMO security,28 in 2010 the Gates Foundation aligned itself with Monsanto and Cargill. They invested practically $23 million in 500,000 Monsanto shares.
Subsequently, a South African watchdog group found the Gates Foundation had additionally invested $10 million in Cargill to “develop the soya value chain,”29 which The Guardian wrote most likely meant the “big time introduction of GM soy in southern Africa.”30
In 2010, The Guardian additionally reported that Gates had funded analysis to develop machines that will spray seawater into the clouds with the aim of accelerating the power to replicate daylight into house, and due to this fact cut back world warming. The transfer triggered a name for a worldwide ban on geoengineering experiments from the ETC Group and a remark from co-executive director Jim Thomas:31
“We knew Microsoft was developing cloud applications for computers but we didn’t expect this. Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies in this way.”
Not to be deterred by naysayers, eight years later in 2018 Gates agreed to assist fund experiments for Harvard scientists, who proposed to spray the stratosphere with calcium chloride to assist sluggish the Earth’s warming.32
In retaining with previous choices, Gates additionally helps plant-based and lab-grown meat options,33,34 that are riddled with patented chemical substances and genetically engineered components. Seth Itzkan from Soil4Climate, characterizes one fake-meat product this manner:35
“Impossible Foods should really be called Impossible Patents. It’s not food; it’s software, intellectual property — 14 patents, in fact, in each bite of Impossible Burger with over 100 additional patents pending for animal proxies from chicken to fish. It’s iFood, the next killer app. Just download your flavor. This is likely the appeal for Bill Gates, their über investor.”
Presumably, his assist of chemical meals, paying homage to the DuPont slogan “Better things for better living through chemistry,”36 is to scale back carbon emissions. However, as has been documented and coated in different articles I’ve written, regenerative farming practices are higher for the land, the animals and your well being.
Your Health Depends on Whole Food
Convinced that their technique of manufacturing chemical-based meals reduces the carbon footprint, Impossible Foods employed Quantis to provide them scientific proof.37 According to the chief abstract printed on their web site, their product reduces the environmental affect between 87% and 96% within the classes Quantis studied, together with world warming potential, land occupation and water consumption.
However, Quantis in contrast pretend meat manufacturing in opposition to CAFOs, that are notoriously harmful. On the opposite hand, White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, practices true sustainable, regenerative farming and produces high-quality, grass fed merchandise.
White Oak Pastures commissioned the identical evaluation, by the identical firm, which confirmed they’d a internet complete emission within the destructive numbers.38 It’s additionally price noting that the Impossible Burger is produced from GMO soy containing glyphosate.
Your well being and longevity are depending on offering your physique with essential vitamins from complete meals. It’s merely unattainable to be sustained by artificial chemical substances, poisonous GMO grains contaminated with pesticides and pretend meat. Regenerative farming practices can present complete meals and might have a constructive affect on the surroundings.
Imagine the highly effective affect Gates may have on the surroundings and the nation if he would transfer his large acreage into regenerative farming practices. This may increase the standard of meals the land produces and exhibit sustainable practices that may be adopted world wide.
Instead, it seems that monetary motivations are serving to to drive environmental choices to assist his private objectives. As I’ve mentioned in different articles, the motion to develop pretend meals is profitable. However, you may shield your well being and your future by beginning with a couple of easy tips that embody at all times selecting natural meals, shopping for from native farmers and by no means consuming processed meals of any kind.
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