When hearing about Bill Gates one invariably thinks about Microsoft and philanthropy and yet the world's fourth richest man is very much into farming. In recent years, his investment company Cascade has been buying land as if his life depended on it.
Bill Gates is the biggest owner of farmland in the United States. According to a Land Report, the Microsoft co-founder now has a whopping 242,000 acres across 18 states. This buying spree has left many people wondering what Gates' endgame is because he's never spoke about his love for cultivating crops and the "pleasant" scent of fresh manure.
According to the New York Post, Gates' interest in farmland is motivated by his desire to deal with the issue of climate change as well as to help poorer nations, where people suffer from hunger.
The tabloid writes that Gates' farmland empire is managed by Cottonwood Ag Management, which in turn is a member of Leading Harvest, a nonprofit organisation that helps farmers across the world to "adopt better practices now, so that we all can grow a healthier future for generations to come".
Reports previously suggested that agriculture, in particular beef production, contributes to CO2 emissions which traps heat radiated from the Sun and consequently leads to climate change.
Gates earlier said that without innovation the world won't be able to deal with climate change, which many scientists say will result in extreme temperatures, natural disasters, and the collapse of ecosystems.
To that end, Gates participates in environment projects and invests in different companies. One of them is Impossible Foods that produces beef substitutes.
Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who is also on the board of Leading Harvest, says farms are not only part of the climate change problem, but can also become a solution.
Sherrick believes that the Microsoft co-founder will make a big difference if he manages to show that farming can be both profitable and sustainable.
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