The New Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers

[RANT]

When we hear tenant farmers and sharecroppers we think of poor farmers working for a landowner on an antebellum plantation, well that all has been changed now the farmer is working for a hedge fund or a multinational corporation.

This popped up on news-feeds...

McDonald's french fries, carrots, onions: all of the foods that come from Bill Gates farmland
Gates does not appear to count his farming investments as the nation’s largest farmland owner as part of his broader strategy to save the climate.
NBC News
By April Glaser
June 9, 2021


They own the soil where the potatoes in McDonald’s french fries grow, the carrots from the world’s largest producer and the onions that Americans sauté every night for dinner. But they’re far better known for their work in tech and in trying to save the climate.

Bill and Melinda Gates, who recently announced they’re getting divorced and are dividing their assets, are deeply invested in American agriculture. The billionaire couple, in less than a decade, have accumulated more than 269,000 acres of farmland across 18 states, more than the entire acreage of New York City. The farmland was purchased through a constellation of companies that all link back to the couple’s investment group, Cascade Investments, based in Kirkland, Washington.

Data gathered by The Land Report and NBC News show that their land holdings range from 70,000 acres in north Louisiana, where their farmland grows soybeans, corn, cotton and rice, to 20,000 acres in Nebraska, where farmers grow soybeans. They bought and later sold an additional 6,000 acres in Georgia, NBC News found. In Washington, the Gateses own more than 14,000 acres of farmland that includes potato fields so massive that they are visible from space and some of which are processed into french fries for McDonald’s. And in Florida, farmers grow carrots on their property. These land holdings are separate from their previous investments in companies that support large-scale farming like Monsanto and the tractor manufacturer John Deere.

But he is not alone in gobbling up farmland in the U.S.

'American Soil' Is Increasingly Foreign Owned
NPR All Things Considered
May 27, 2019


American soil.

Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can't be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.

When the stock market tanked during the past recession, foreign investors began buying up big swaths of U.S. farmland. And because there are no federal restrictions on the amount of land that can be foreign owned, it's been left up to individual states to decide on any limitations.

It's likely that even more American land will end up in foreign hands, especially in states with no restrictions on ownership. With the median age of U.S. farmers at 55, many face retirement with no prospect of family members willing to take over. The National Young Farmers Coalition anticipates that two-thirds of the nation's farmland will change hands in the next few decades.

In an Opinion in the Ionia Sentinel – Standard...

Deborah J. Comstock: The selling of America: The dramatic increase of foreign-owned farmlands


[...]
Many states have no regulations to stop the purchase of foreign countries from buying American farmlands. For example, Ohio and Texas have no restrictions, and approximately half a million acres of prime farmland have sold to foreign-owned entities. In Ohio this, in part, translates to 64,000 acres owned by companies from the Netherlands. The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting Tool (apps.investigatemidwest.org/afida/) provides information by state, county and name regarding foreign-owned lands. For example, Canada is top owner of American farmlands at 6.87 million acres; the Netherlands follows at 4.87 million acres; Germany with 1.94 million acres; the United Kingdom at 1.7 million acres; Italy with 1.4 million acres and France with 1.04 million acres. And the number is increasing.

The trend is also in the meat producers…

Mighty Giants: Leaders of the Global Meat Complex
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
By Shefali Sharma
April 10, 2018


While global agribusiness giants such as Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer and DuPont are best known for their control over the global seeds, cereals and agrochemicals market, symbolizing the corporate takeover of the food system, an extremely powerful segment of agribusiness remains hidden from public scrutiny: The companies that control the production, processing and trade of beef, poultry and pork worldwide. This is because they often hide behind a “brand” name for their products and because their end product (meat) does not appear directly responsible for the negative impacts of the supply chain. Last November, IATP published research showing that the top 20 meat and dairy companies, known as the “Meat Majors,” produce more greenhouse gases than Germany. Even if the world were to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, unless over consumption of meat is eliminated and reduced to sustainable levels, the Earth is likely to face more than 2 degrees of global warming by 2050.
[...]
The rise of this type of agribusiness has been phenomenal over the last forty years, but particularly intense since the 2000s. JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Smithfield are the world’s largest meat-producing corporations. JBS alone accounted for over ten million tons (carcass weight equivalent) of meat processing in 2009-2010…

You might remember JBS, it was in the news last week for getting hacked with ransomware.

As more and more wealth is concentrated in a few we are becoming an authoritarian feudal society but instead of lords we will multinational mega corporations and billionaires.

[/RANT]