You Think Bill Gates Is Buying Up All This Farmland For Africa?

NYPost |  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently launched a new division known as Gates Ag One. It aims to help poor farmers, especially in Africa and South Asia, get the “tools, technologies, and resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty.” If each acre can produce more food, that’s good news for farmers. But it also means we can devote less of the planet’s surface to farmland, which is good news for forests and ecosystems. 

Meanwhile, American agriculture today is being transformed as farmers employ new technologies and Big Data to help them manage their crops. That can mean better yields with decreased use of fertilizers and pesticides. Which in turn means less impact on the environment. 

Farms also have a role in fighting climate change. With proper techniques, the carbon from decaying plant matter can be kept safely in the soil, rather than entering the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. 

A new coalition of farmland owners, operators and environmental groups is working to come up with verifiable standards for sustainable farming. The group is called Leading Harvest, and the Gates-linked Cottonwood Ag is one of its founding members. 

Leading Harvest envisions a kind of sustainability seal of approval certifying that a given farm meets environmental standards. The program could be an economic boon for farmers. 

“In the future, farmers will be paid for sustainability,” says Sherrick, who sits on the group’s board. There will be incentives for things like using less water, fewer chemicals, and storing more carbon. 

The group’s founding members are expected to spearhead the rollout of the new standards on their own lands. 

Whether or not Gates personally directed Cottonwood Ag to get involved in the Leading Harvest project, the move makes both environmental and business sense. 

“The new green economy will mean new opportunities for land owners,” O’Keefe believes. 

“Farming is all of a sudden part of the solution and not just part of the problem,” Sherrick adds. He sees Gates’ involvement — even if indirect — as crucial in encouraging the industry to embrace the new sustainability standard. 

If the nation’s largest farmland owner can show that farming can be both sustainable and profitable, that will make a big difference. 

“People are going to pay attention to what Bill is doing,” Sherrick says.