New Delhi: It may sound unbelievable, but Bill Gates people world over know as the co-founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, is the biggest farmer of United States.
Taking keen interest in agriculture, he and his estranged wife Melinda Gates have reportedly accumulated more than 2.69 lakh acres of farmland in 18 states of America.
Gates reportedly has farmlands in Louisiana, Nebraska, Georgia and other areas including 70,000 acres of land in North Louisiana where they grow soybeans, corn, cotton and rice and 20,000 acres in Nebraska. There also, the farmers grow soybeans.
They also have 6,000 acres in Georgia, 14,000 acres of farmland in Washington where the farmers grow potatoes.
“My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate. 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,” Gates had once said when asked about his farmlands on Reddit.
Bill and Melinda are reported to have invested heavily in farmland but the reason behind that is not clear. Some reports had claimed that it could be connected to climate change. The couple had launched a new nonprofit group to help small scale farmers in countries like India with the tools and innovations they would require to deal with the effects of climate change.
