Fact Check: Is Bill Gates Purchasing a “Majority of American Farmland?”

Not even close.

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A viral tweet from right-wing activist Mercedes Schlapp claims that Bill Gates is purchasing “a majority of American farmland” and that investment firm BlackRock is purchasing “a majority of single family houses.”

Gates is indeed buying up farmland, but his purchases come nowhere near a majority of American farmland. There are 895 million acres of farmland in the United States according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to reporting about Gates purchasing farmland last year, he owns more than 269,000 acres. When asked during a Reddit Ask Me Anything event why he was buying up so much farmland, Gates replied: “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’ farmland represents .03 percent of American farmland. It’s a sizable amount for  a single land owner, and is enough to make Gates the most significant private farmland owner in the country. But it is nowhere near a majority of American farmland as Schlapp suggests.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Chalk another one up to American innumeracy (see Scott Lincicome on this subject). Maybe not in Schlapp’s case but definitely for people who believe her.

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      Ben Connelly

      Also is she related to Matt?

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        JohnF

        Spouse, I believe.

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          Ben Connelly

          That’s what I figured

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  2. Mwupton

    "Schlapp’s claims about Bill Gates and BlackRock are based on things that are actually happening, but they’re wildly inaccurate." Replace the nouns, and this is essentially every conspiracy theory. Take a fact that sounds concerning out of context, add some hyperbole, and insinuate it is being done for nefarious reasons. If you can connect Bill Gates, the Bushes, the CIA, or the IMF to it, it will be immediately be believed and disseminated by a certain minded person.

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    Frank Lee

    I really have a problem with this fact checking headline. It is intellectually dishonest to take the claim literally (e.g. “A majority”) when the facts are that he is the largest farmland owner in the nation… and is still buying more… while he promotes industrialized countries switching to synthetic meat. The context of the claim is materially correct if not literally correct. This demonstrates that excessive word policing destroys a good conversation.

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      L Bernard

      But he's not the largest farmland owner in the nation, he's the largest *private* owner. And if we include all agriculture, he's completely dwarfed by ranch-land holders. King Ranch in Texas alone holds over 800,000 acres, and John Malone owns 2.2 million acres of "ranch-land and timber".

      Bill Gates owns a lot of land, but his holdings aren't extraordinary. The title accurately counters the misinformation claim that Bill Gates is buying up extreme amounts of land: he is not.

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        Frank Lee

        Ranch land is not farmland. And no, the claim that he is buying up extreme amounts of farmland is NOT misinformation. He is buying an extraordinary amount of farmland in a very short timeframe. He now is the largest private farmland owner. Why?

        The title does not counter any misinformation.

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          L Bernard

          There is enough farmland in the United States for 3327 Bill Gates farms. He is not "buying most of America's farmland."

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          L Bernard

          What counts as extreme is of course a matter of opinion, and you are entitled to yours. But to provide context, the second-largest farmland owner is 190,000 acres, compared to Bill Gate's 269,000, and Bill Gate's holdings make up about 1/3327 of the total farmland in the United States. Any claim that he is "buying up most of America's farmland", whether metaphorical or literal, is dishonest.

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      Jack

      The claim is that he owns a majority (ie, he owns 50.1%) of the farmland in the U.S. That isn't true, therefore the claim got a "false" rating. If people wanted to make the claim that he owns a PLURALITY, then they should say that instead of saying "a majority."

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        Frank Lee

        Twaddle unless you are grading papers for a living. The actual context of the claim is accurate and it covers the topic we should be debating. Had this been a synchronous conversation instead of a Tweet, someone would have simply said “so, you mean that Gates is the largest farmland owner, not that he owns the majority of the farmland, correct?” Now, if the Tweeter rejected that correction and repeated “no, he owns the majority of all farmland”… then this fact-checking makes senes. But even I, who knows the real facts on farmland ownership, could easily make a similar mistake in claim on Twitter which limits the number of characters that can be used in a Tweet. Ask yourself the “why” and “what” the claim is being made and what the key theme is? It really makes no difference that he is the majority farmland owner (literally incorrect) or the person that owns the most farmland (correct) in context for what the claim was attempting to communicate. This fact check is just a distraction and does not add any value to the conversation.

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          Peter S.

          You can say "majority" vs. "plurality" is nitpicking. I would say "majority" is a HIGHLY misleading way to say "0.03%".

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          Jack

          The claim being spread around is that Bill Gates is buying a majority of the farmland in the U.S. Regardless of what the initial tweeter (who may or may not be the one shown in this article) meant, the 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮 being spread is what matters.
          Also, you can communicate both claims in less than 280 characters (the maximum amount that Twitter allows).
          Bill Gates is buying up the majority of American farmland.
          Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in America.
          Total characters: 114

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  4. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    It sounds as though "right-wing activist Mercedes Schlapp," a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union, is exactly the type of "peer" whose activity on Twitter requires Dispatch writers to participate there as well.

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