North Dakotans are “livid” over a recent agricultural purchase made by a trust that is supposedly connected to Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
Officials claim that in November, Red River Trust purchased six pieces of land close to the Minnesota and Canadian borders, perhaps in violation of state restrictions on corporate farming.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley of North Dakota wrote to the trust on Tuesday, requesting confirmation of the trust’s plans for the land’s use and a determination of whether the business qualifies for any legal exceptions.
Red River Trust will be required to sell its holdings in the property and faces a $100,000 fine if it broke the law.
According to The Associated Press, Gates has surreptitiously accumulated over 270,000 acres of land across dozens of states, making him the greatest private owner of farmland in America.
The billionaire’s holdings, however, only account for a minuscule percentage of the over 900 million farm acres in the United States.
According to Wrigley, who cited state law, corporations and limited liability firms are not permitted to purchase or lease farmland or ranchland in North Dakota.
These organizations are likewise prohibited from farming or ranching by state law.
The attorney general wrote, “Additionally, the law imposes significant restrictions on the ability of trusts to own farmland or ranchland.”
He has requested that Red River Trust, which bought what seems to be Campbell Farms in Grafton, give his office a copy of its land ownership title and divulge its plans for the property.
The use of the property by your organization must be verified in order for our office to determine whether it complies with any legal exceptions, such as the exception for commercial purposes.
Red River Trust has 30 days to deliver the required paperwork to the state.
In a “quiet deal” completed in November 2021, the Campbell potato farming group gave the roughly 2,100 acres of land, valued at more than $13.5 million, to Red River Trust.
According to public records that AG Week was able to get, the trust paid about $6,600 per acre for the area of the property that was situated in Pembina County.
Analysts claim that river boundaries complicate the sale price of the Walsh County land, which was about $6,000 per acre.
Doug Goehring, the North Dakota agriculture commissioner, told KFYR that his office had heard complaints about the land transaction.
It’s not even just that neighborhood, said Goehring, “I’ve gotten a tremendous earful on this from clear across the state.” “Those folks are sad, but some people are absolutely furious about this,” others said.
Although the commissioner pointed out that selling land to a billionaire is not illegal nor unconstitutional, he claimed that the residents of North Dakota feel as though they are being taken advantage of by the “ultra-rich who acquire land in North Dakota but do not necessarily share the state’s ideals.”
Wrigley’s letter, which is written to trustee Peter Headley, does not mention Gates by name.
At a shared address with Cottonwood Ag, also known as Cottonwood Farms, and Oak River Farms/Midwest, the trust is situated in Lenexa, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.
According to AG Week, Cottonwood Ag Management is a team that manages agricultural assets for Cascade Investment, L.L.C. and Bill and Melinda Gates Investments.
Also disclosed by analysts in 2020 was Headley’s leadership of Cottonwood, which has been referred to as Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates’ ex-“ag-investment wife’s platform.”
Campbell Farms appears to be continuing its potato cultivation, even on the acreage covered by the agreement, despite Gates’ apparent ownership of the North Dakota farm.
The Campbells purchased the property in 1978 using a $9,000 loan, according to their website. The farm operates in Grand Forks, North Dakota; Grafton, North Dakota; and Big Lake, Minnesota.
Gates already has a sizable portfolio of land. His major holdings in the United States as of 2021 comprised 69,071 acres in Louisiana, 47,927 acres in Arkansas, 25,750 acres in Arizona, 20,588 acres in Nebraska, and 16,097 acres in the state of Washington.
Even so, when taking into account owners of land of all types, not only agricultural land, Gates didn’t place among the top 100 private landowners in the United States.
The head of Liberty Media and American businessman John Malone, who owns 2.2 million acres, holds the record for the country’s greatest landholdings.
While on a superyacht holiday in Turkey in November, Gates is also said to have looked for “hundreds of acres of farmland.”
He purportedly desired to establish a sizable, sustainable farm in the nation. It is unknown if he ultimately bought the property.