Real Land Lords

    I am still trying to avoid other tasks, so I will post another one about land ownership,  having just published one about Bill Gates now being the top private farm landowner in the United States. You should not be left with the impression that he owns a lot of land, compared to some others who own a lot more. The Queen, for example, or the Pope who has "nearly two hundred millions acres of land." Ted Turner used to be at the very top of the list of the top landowners, which irritated me because he also had Jane Fonda. He has been supplanted by John Malone who owns over 2 million acres of land as well as the Atlanta Braves about which I am less irritated.  Here are the top twenty-five:

You will notice at #6 our very own Irving family, but the figure provided there just indicates recent purchases. They own over 1 million acres of land (if such a large figure bothers you, it is less in hectares.) 

   You should also notice #5 on the list, the charming Mr. Stan Kroenke, who bought 200,000 hectares in British Columbia - the former Douglas Lake Cattle Company or Douglas Lake Ranch. The Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club members and many others in British Columbia used to fish in the remote lakes on the property, but Mr. Kronke locked the gates. He did the same thing when he purchased the half million acre Waggoner Ranch in North Texas. The courts up here recently decided that Mr. Kroenke had the right to deny access and it was determined that the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club, who fought Kroenke in court, would have to pay his legal fees. 

Sources:
"Court Rules 2 B.C. Lakes Cannot Be Publicly Accessed, Siding With Canada's Largest Cattle Ranch," CBC News, Mar. 5, 2021.
"Billionaire Wins Legal Battle to Deny Public Access to B.C. Lakes," Cheryl Santa Maria, The Weather Channel, March 10, 2021.
"U.S. Billionaire Wins Battle to Keep Anglers Off His Giant B.C. Ranch, Vancouver Sun, Mar. 7, 2021.
"Annals of Geography," "Promised Land," David Owen, The New Yorker, Feb. 8, 2021 (for the statistic about the land ownership of the Catholic Church.)

The Bonus:
The table above came from The Land Report: The Magazine of the American Landowner. You will find it fascinating. It contains ads such as the one by Boone Pickens a couple of year ago when he put up for sale his Mesa Vista Ranch - 65,000 acres for $220,000,000. It is an oasis with the "World's Best Quail Hunting." 

In Scotland, one can roam freely anywhere and in some Scandinavian countries, the notion of 'trespassing' is a rather alien one. For more on that subject see the Chapter, "Going Nowhere and Everywhere' in Simon Winchester's Land: How the Hunger For Ownership Shaped the Modern World.

Bill Gates: The Farmer

   I have not posted anything in about fifteen days and no one has noticed or complained. I am back at work, however, because doing this beats doing some of the other things I should be doing. It is also the case, I am sure, that hundreds have been waiting at the door of my blog for something new, if only to avoid having to read anything more about the Royal Couple.

   You probably noticed that Mr. Gates has published another book: How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.  It is a good thing that a person of his wealth and prominence has called attention to the fact that we may have a problem. We should have listened to him back in 2015 when he made this statement: "If anything kills over 10 million people over the next few decades, it is likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than war." 

Land Nerd

   You probably did not notice what I am about to present; that is why this blog is so valuable to you. When Bill Gates wasn't writing he was out shopping: 

"Bill Gates, the fourth richest person in the world and a self-described nerd who is known for his early programming skills rather than his love of the outdoors, has been quietly snatching up 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S. — enough to make him the top private farmland owner in America....

While it may be surprising that a tech billionaire would also be the biggest farmland owner in the country, this is not Gates’ only foray into agriculture. In 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced $306 million in grants to promote high-yield, sustainable agriculture among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The foundation has further invested in the development and proliferation of “super crops” resistant to climate change and higher-yield dairy cows. Last year, the organization announced Gates Ag One, a nonprofit to advance those efforts."

   That seems like a rather generous gesture and in his new book he points out that the world's poorest people are likely to be harmed most by the changing climate. Once again, you may not know that some people think that Bill Gates is more evil than George Soros. They argue that he is really trying to kill-off the African people and "One outlandish belief is that he is using the pandemic to push a vaccine with a microchip that would control people's minds or track their location." Given my general glibness you may assume that I am joking and making this up.  I am not. Nor do I think that Gates and Soros are evil. 

Sources:

 The quotation about the property purchases is from; "America's Biggest Owner of Farmland is Now Bill Gates," Ariel Shapiro, Forbes, Jan. 14, 2021.

About the conspiracy theories involving Gates, there is plenty: 
"Bill Gates' Daughter Jennifer Jokes About Conspiracy Theory After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine," Eric Levenson, CNN, Feb. 15, 2021. (the source for the "outlandish belief.")

"How Bill Gates Became the Voodoo Doll of Covid Conspiracies," Jane Wakefield, BBC, June 6, 2020. 

Bill also has a blog and you can learn more about the book there. 

The Bonus:

Given that small bits of land and, little dilapidated houses around here are going for very big bucks, it is amazing that anyone has wealth enough to make such big, bulk purchases of property. Many can't afford to even rent a place.

"According to a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there isn't a single American state in which a person working full time for minimum wage can afford a one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent." From: "Trailer-Park Trades," by Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker, March 15, 2021.