South
Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson has written to the House Agriculture Committee
requesting them to examine Bill Gates’ interests in his purchases of big chunks
of farmland, becoming the largest individual farmland owner in America.
Republican
Dusty Johnson wrote the letter to the committee chair David Scott on Wednesday 20th July 2022.
“I write to
request you call Mr. Bill Gates before the Agriculture Committee to
testify regarding his farming interests and practices,” he wrote expressing his concern
that “Mr. Gates is the largest private farmland owner in America,” he said in
the letter.
According to the
United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research, the average farm
size in 2021 was 445 acres but the Microsoft co-founder who is pushing for not
eating animal meat owns nearly 270000 acres of farmland across 19 states.
“I believe that
Mr. Gates’ holdings across much of our nation is a significant portion that the
Committee should not ignore, [looking at] as he has been a leading voice in the
push for synthetic meat.”
Rep Johnson is a Ranking Member of the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture
Subcommittee and the sole Congressional Member from South Dakota where
there are over four beef cattle for every resident.
Bill Gates has
been calling on rich countries to move to 100 percent synthetic beef, raising questions about the connection of the aspiration to purchasing farmland and advocacy for
synthetic beef, according to Rep Johnson.
Apparently, the
North Dakota government has granted Bill Gates the legal authority to purchase
an additional 2,100 acres of farmland, with locals complaining that they feel they
are being exploited by wealthy landowners like Gates who buy massive swathes of
land while refusing to share the state’s conservative values, according to the
Rebel News.
At the beginning
of July 2022, the Daily Mail reported that Bill Gates won the legal approval to
buy a huge swath of North Dakota farmland at $13.5M after an outcry from residents
who said they are being exploited by the ultra-rich
“North Dakota’s
Agriculture Commissioner, Republican Doug Goehring, previously said that many
people feel they are being exploited by the ultra-rich who buy land but do not
necessarily share the state’s values,” the Daily Mail reported.
“I’ve gotten a
big earful on this from clear across the state, it’s not even from that neighbourhood,”
said Goehring in an interview with a local news station. “Those people are
upset, but there are others that are just livid about this.”, the Rebel New
quoted.
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