BILL GATES

AND THE
AGRICULTURE
Luis Monroy
Bill and Melinda Gates have amassed the largest
portfolio of private farmland in the US, comprising an
estimated 242,000 acres of farmland in 18 states, with
the largest holdings in Louisiana (69,071 acres),
Arkansas (47,927 acres), and Arizona (25,750 acres).
• The land is held by Cascade
Investments, Gates' personal
investment vehicle, directly and
through third-party entities.
• The foundation has further
invested in the development and
proliferation of climate change
resistant “super crops” and higher
yielding dairy cows. Last year,
Gates Ag One, a nonprofit
organization, was announced to
further those efforts.
• Cottonwood Ag Management, a
subsidiary of Cascade, which is a
member of Leading Harvest, a
nonprofit organization that
promotes sustainable agriculture
standards that prioritize the
protection of crops, soil, and water
resources.
 SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Bill Gates is a technologist, business
leader, and philanthropist. He grew
up in Seattle, Washington, with an
amazing and supportive family who
encouraged his interest in computers
at an early age. He dropped out of
college to start Microsoft with his
childhood friend Paul Allen. Today,
Bill co-chairs the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation with Melinda
French Gates, where he works to give
his wealth back to society.
Bill grew up in Seattle
with his two sisters. His
late father, William H.
Gates Sr., was a Seattle
attorney and one of the
co-chairs of the Bill &
Melinda Gates
Foundation. His late
mother, Mary Gates, was
a schoolteacher,
University of Washington
regent, and chairwoman
of United Way
International. Bill has
three children.
In 2000, Bill and Melinda
officially established the
foundation. They also
announced the first round
of Gates Millennium
Scholars, part of a $1
billion effort to help 20,000
young people afford
college over the next two
decades.
These days Bill focuses most
of his time on the work he is
doing through his
foundation. People are often
surprised to hear him say
that this work has a lot in
common with his work at
Microsoft. In both cases, he
gets to bring together smart
people and collaborate with
them to solve big, tough
problems.
In 2017, the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation
committed $300 million to
helping farmers in Africa
and Asia cope with climate
change.
Agricultural
development
The principal goal of the
foundation is to support farmers
and governments in sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia that are
seeking a sustainable, inclusive
agricultural transformation—one
that creates economic opportunity,
respects limits on natural
resources, and gives everyone
equal access to affordable,
nutritious food.
• They invest in agriculture because
around the world, agriculture has a
strong track record of providing an
effective pathway out of poverty—of
giving poor people an opportunity to
live a healthy, productive life.
• To succeed, smallholder farmers in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia don’t
need their farms to get big, but they do
need to become more productive, using
sustainable approaches that respect
limits on natural resources and the need
to preserve biodiversity and fragile
ecosystems. And they frequently have a
lack of access to market opportunities
that can support investments in better
inputs, tools, and farming practices.
Their strategy
They support inclusive agricultural development with three main
types of investments:
• Invest in tools and technologies that target the specific needs of
farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
• Invest in public- and private-sector efforts to develop more
effective systems for delivering products and services to
smallholder farmers.
• Invest in developing and scaling up innovative support structures
for smallholder food producers that provide new options for
sustainably earning a reliable income from their hard work.
Areas of focus
• Enabling country systems:
Africa and Asia
• Seed systems and varietal
improvement
• Crop discovery and
translational sciences
• Nutritious food systems
• Global policy and advocacy
• Livestock
• Digital farmer services
• Women’s empowerment
“The agriculture sector is
important. With more
productive seeds we can
avoid deforestation and
help Africa deal with the
climate difficulty they
already face. It is unclear
how cheap biofuels can be
but if they are cheap, it
can solve the aviation and
truck emissions.”
REFERENCES
• https://www.growingproduce.com/farm-
management/why-is-bill-gates-buying-up-so-much-
farmland/
• https://www.gatesnotes.com/Bio
• https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-
work/programs/global-growth-and-
opportunity/agricultural-development
• https://www.forbes.com.mx/negocios-de-windows-al-
campo-bill-gates-ahora-es-el-mayor-agricultor/