Knowledge is power. So is ownership, including land ownership. Did you know that Bill Gates is America’s top farmland investor? This short video reveals many of the global strategies Gates has been using to influence your health and the food supply.
Through his founding of the second-largest technological company in the world,1 Gates has developed financial and influential relationships with powerful organizations responsible for many global decisions that affect your life.
Subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, his movements have grown a massive financial empire and expanded his ability to create change to support his goals. Gates is also a supporter of the “Great Reset” that promises “social cohesion, fairness, inclusion and equality,”2 while allowing elite billionaires to practice strategies that grew his and other billionaires’ wealth by 26% during the pandemic in 2020.3
In other words, while supporting Marxist principles to spread the wealth — so by 2030 you can say, “I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy and Life Has Never Been Better”4 — he is enjoying the fruits of his labor by accumulating more wealth and property, a decidedly different approach to the Great Reset he promotes.
Put plainly, the political and ideological foundations of Marxism have once again surfaced, and in some arenas, are celebrated. However, it’s vital to remember that unlike Walgreens’ advertising campaign featuring a picture-perfect town of “Perfect,”5 Marxist philosophy has created tyranny and was responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million people in the last century, as aptly described by James Bovard in USA Today.6
History is studied and shared so the mistakes of the past are not repeated. However, it’s evident there are many who have forgotten, or never learned, what resulted behind the Iron Curtain from implementing the socialist principles which now underpin the Great Reset.
The Great Reset or Fourth Industrial Revolution has strong supporters among wealthy technocrats who will not redistribute their own wealth, but will only continue to grow their financial empires as the rest of the world suffers. Indeed, 2020 has only been a taste of what could come as more people lose their jobs and financial security, while those controlling the event become wealthier.
Bill Gates Is Now the Biggest Farmland Owner
The Land Report announced that multibillionaire Bill Gates currently holds the title as America’s biggest private farmland owner. He owns 242,000 acres, nearly 52,000 more than the next largest farmland owner.7 To put this in perspective, 52,000 is equal to 39,325 football fields, including the end zones.8 His farmland (approximately 378.125 square miles) would rank in total land mass as the eighth largest city in the U.S. in 2010.9
It was Eric O’Keefe from the Land Report10 who ferreted out the story after reading that 14,500 acres of choice farmland in Benton County, Washington, had been sold for $171 million, or nearly $12,000 per acre. O’Keefe describes the area as “some of the richest farmland in the Lower 48,” that “savvy investors have been plowing millions of dollars into.”11
Although the seller was listed as John Hancock Life Insurance, the buyer was reported as a limited liability company from Louisiana. Digging deeper and engaging their research team, he discovered the paper trail led to a company managed by Michael Larson, manager of the Gates’ personal portfolio and much of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the last 25 years.
Larson primarily uses Cascade Investment LLC as the entity through which he manages their personal portfolio. O’Keefe details the sequence in which the land changed hands over 10 years. The largest single block of farmland was quietly acquired by Cascade in 2017, one year after it was purchased by a Canadian firm.12
The sale was revealed in the Canadian firm’s quarterly statement, in which they reported offloading $520 million in farmland offered in a single block. An investigative journalist ultimately found the half-billion-dollar sale led to Cascade Investment LLC.
Gates Is Not the Largest Individual Landowner
Gates owns a substantial amount of land, for a total of 268,894 acres if you count his transitional and recreational properties. But, he’s not the only billionaire who tops the Land Report list. Stewart and Lynda Resnick, co-founders of Wonderful Company, come in at No. 2, owning 190,000 acres. They use their farmland to support their food products, such as Wonderful Pistachios and Wonderful Halos Mandarin oranges.13
Gates also is not the largest individual landowner overall, as that spot goes to John Malone, chairman of the board at Liberty Media Corporation and former chief executive officer for Tele-Communications Inc.14 Malone owns 2.2 million acres of forest and ranch land; media Mogul Ted Turner owns 2 million across eight states.15
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is also heavily invested in land, coming in the 25th spot at 420,000 acres located mostly in Texas.16 The remaining list is filled with recognizable names, including the King Ranch, Ford family and the Kennedy Memorial Foundation.17
In addition to farmland, Cascade Investment has purchased 24,800 acres of transitional property west of Phoenix, which is poised for city expansion 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.”18
Cascade also bought 1,234 recreational acres, making the land Gates owns through just Cascade Investment LLC at 268,984 acres. Separate from the Gates’ personal holdings is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has no ties to Cascade, but does have a farmland initiative called 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 comment on the quiet transactions through the Canadian company, they have come out in support of sustainable farming. One of the entities owned by Cascade, Cottonwood Ag Management, is an initial member of Leading Harvest, a nonprofit organization formed 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 goal is to create a “sustainability standard that can be implemented across the greatest swath of agricultural acreage.”21 Yet, while this goal is commendable, they remain words on paper without a substantive foundation.
In other words, according to the organization, they do not offer farmers guidance to achieve the goal, only the formation of a certification program to audit the farmers’ results.22 In their publication, they describe the program:23
“It does not prescribe practices necessary to conform with the Standard; rather, it provides family farmers and farm managers the flexibility to select best practices for sustainable outcomes. This approach allows for adaptation across crops and geographies, recognizing that even a single crop can require unique management strategies in different regions.
An outcome-based approach recognizes that prescribing the same processes and metrics across geographies can be ineffective. By encouraging farmers to innovate new approaches and apply best management practices suited for their crops and consistent with regional best practices, management results are improved, and greater sustainability outcomes are achieved.”
In other words, instead of guidance and standards for how the farmer achieves sustainability and protects the future of farming, they created a certification for farmers to demonstrate their participation in developing practices where the end result meets their standard — do the ends justify the means?
Gates Seeking Sustainable Energy in All the Wrong Places
Gates has been calling for sustainable energy and a reduction of carbon emissions for over a decade.24 At one point in a 2010 TED talk, he questioned if we need another Manhattan Project to discover a renewable and safe energy source.
If you don’t remember, the Manhattan Project was the code name given to an operation aimed at discovering a functional nuclear weapon,25 that resulted in a bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. When asked how he would deal with climate change skeptics, he said:26
“The main problem we have here — it’s kind of like 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 climate change and the technological advancements that may be necessary 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 said brusquely, swatting aside one objection as a trivial statement of the obvious. “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 may not think highly of the government or entrepreneurs, he does believe that plant-based and lab-grown meat alternatives are healthy and sustainable. Historically, some of the decisions from the Gates Foundation haven’t been focused on the environment but, rather, cloaked in rhetoric that appears environmentally friendly.
For example, despite a lack of consensus on GMO safety,28 in 2010 the Gates Foundation aligned itself with Monsanto and Cargill. They invested nearly $23 million in 500,000 Monsanto shares.
Subsequently, a South African watchdog group discovered the Gates Foundation had also invested $10 million in Cargill to “develop the soya value chain,”29 which The Guardian wrote probably meant the “big time introduction of GM soy in southern Africa.”30
In 2010, The Guardian also reported that Gates had funded research to develop machines that would spray seawater into the clouds with the goal of increasing the ability to reflect sunlight into space, and therefore reduce global warming. The move triggered a call for a global ban on geoengineering experiments from the ETC Group and a comment 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 help fund experiments for Harvard scientists, who proposed to spray the stratosphere with calcium chloride to help slow the Earth’s warming.32
In keeping with past decisions, Gates also supports plant-based and lab-grown meat alternatives,33,34 which are riddled with patented chemicals and genetically engineered ingredients. Seth Itzkan from Soil4Climate, characterizes one fake-meat product this way: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 support of chemical food, reminiscent of the DuPont slogan “Better things for better living through chemistry,”36 is to reduce carbon emissions. However, as has been documented and covered in “More Reasons to Avoid “Beyond” Fake Meat,” regenerative farming practices are better for the land, the animals and your health.
Your Health Depends on Whole Food
Convinced that their method of producing chemical-based food reduces the carbon footprint, Impossible Foods hired Quantis to give them scientific evidence.37 According to the executive summary published on their website, their product reduces the environmental impact between 87% and 96% in the categories Quantis studied, including global warming potential, land occupation and water consumption.
However, Quantis compared fake meat production against CAFOs, which are notoriously destructive. On the other hand, White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, practices true sustainable, regenerative farming and produces high-quality, grass fed products.
White Oak Pastures commissioned the same analysis, by the same company, which showed they had a net total emission in the negative numbers.38 It’s also worth noting that the Impossible Burger is made from GMO soy containing glyphosate.
Your health and longevity are dependent on providing your body with necessary nutrients from whole food. It’s simply impossible to be sustained by synthetic chemicals, toxic GMO grains contaminated with pesticides and fake meat. Regenerative farming practices can provide whole food and can have a positive impact on the environment.
Imagine the powerful influence Gates could have on the environment and the country if he would move his massive acreage into regenerative farming practices. This could raise the quality of food the land produces and demonstrate sustainable practices that can be followed around the world.
Instead, it appears that financial motivations are helping to drive environmental decisions to support his personal goals. The movement to develop fake food is lucrative as I discuss in “The Fake Food Race is Worth $3 Trillion.” However, you can protect your health and your future by starting with a few simple guidelines that I outline in the linked article.
