Last Updated on July 21, 2022
South Dakota Republican congressman Dusty Johnson is pushing for Bill Gates to answer questions about his mass land-buying in front of Congress. Gates has made himself the largest private farmland owner in the United States, earning the sarcastic moniker “Farmer Bill” from Gates’ critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Some are questioning why Gates would want to buy up so much farmland, suggesting he is seizing control of some of our food supply as supply shortages threaten American stability.
Drew Wrigley, the attorney general of North Dakota, recently investigated Gates’ purchase of farmland through a front LLC, but Wrigley eventually allowed the purchase to go through.
Now, South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson is picking up the ball on questioning Gates, but will yet another concerned letter from a Republican politician stop Gates’ farmland purchases?
“I write to request you call Mr. Bill Gates before the Agriculture Committee to testify regarding his farming interests and practices,” Congressman Dusty Johnson writes in his letter to the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. “It has become clear in recent reports that Mr. Gates is the largest private farmland owner in America he now owns nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across 19 states. Comparatively, the average farm size in 2021 was 445 acres, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. I believe that Mr. Gates’ holdings across much of our nation is a significant portion that the Committee should not ignore.”
“The Committee should be interested in Mr. Gates’ ownership and plans for his acreage, as he has been a leading voice in the push for ‘synthetic meat.’ In 2021, Mr. Gates was quoted to say ‘all rich countries should move to 100 percent synthetic beef to combat climate change.’ As the Ranking Member of the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee and the sole Congressional Member from South Dakota where there are over four beef cattle for every resident,” Dusty Johnson writes.
“I am especially interested in Mr. Gates’ agricultural aspirations. Thank you for your leadership, and I look forward to working with you to determine the future of farming in the United States,” Dusty Johnson writes.
Stay tuned to National File for any updates.
