Tag Archives: Monsanto

Bill Gates responds on MSNBC to my criticisms of his farm policies 2022-09-13

Last night Bill Gates again pretended to be an expert on farming, while avoiding mention of water, soil, ecology, environment, or community. Many of the assertions he made about farming in the U.S. and Africa don’t match documented research.

He did seem to be familiar with my criticisms of his policies, and by his expressions he doesn’t like them much.

[Question and three Gates expressions]
Question and three Gates expressions

He says “all these areas, they evolve, they understand how to say use less fertilizer, which is both good economically and good environmentally.”

Well, his landholdings in Florida and Georgia did not evolve. And he’s now sold off many of them, so maybe they weren’t good economically for him.

Meanwhile, he has driven the size of farm landholdings up, Continue reading →

Waste not, want not -John S. Quarterman, VDT 2019-07-14

Some of what I said:

Much of what Quarterman and the watershed coalition does is educate people who use the Floridan aquifer, he said.

It’s important to get people out on the water to show them the importance of the natural resource, but since most of the drinking water is more than 400 feet below them, it’s hard to make people appreciate the resource, he said.

“We want to be careful about using up the aquifer,” Quarterman said. “The water level goes down each year, and each year we have to dig deeper to get to the water.”

[VDT Front page, Sunday, July 14, 2019]
Front page, Sunday, July 14, 2019, Valdosta Daily Times
Some of you may recognize the picture, which shows the boom Sabal Trail put in the Withlacoochee River west of Valdosta after their pilot hole leaked drilling fluid up into the river.

Thomas Lynn, Valdosta Daily Times, 14 July 2019, Waste not, want not: Water preservation not a priority,

VALDOSTA — Water is a finite resource. Continue reading →

Agricultural land bought by west coast investors

Investment firms owned by Bill Gates have bought thousands of acress of agricultural land in counties in or near WWALS watersheds in south Georgia and north Florida, all above the Floridan Aquifer, near the Alapaha, Alapahoochee, Withlacoochee, and Suwannee Rivers, as part of a nationwide buying spree of a quarter million acres.

Here’s a summary of what we’ve found thus far. Any more recent posts should be found through this search.

These purchases of hundreds and thousands of contiguous acres are all after Bill Gates announced in 2012 he was going to “fix” agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta.

And it’s not just Bill Gates. Continue reading →

Hamilton County, FL and Bill Gates

300x265 Parcel 5069-010 aerial, in Lakeland Sands and Bill Gates in Hamilton County, FL, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 25 October 2014 Two dozen agricultural parcels owned by a shell of a shell of a shell company investing for Bill Gates in Hamilton County, Florida. Two parcels are in the Withlacoochee River watershed and within the blast radius of the original path of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

The Hamilton County, Florida, Property Appraiser shows these results for a search for Lakeland Sands: Continue reading →

Bill Gates gobbling up Georgia farmland, too

300x567 Aerial of Southwest Echols County, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, 22 October 2014 Update 2015-01-11: People seem confused as to what Bill Gates is doing. However, since he announced in 2012 he was going to “fix” agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta, and he’s buying up hundreds and thousands of contiguous acres at a time, it seems pretty clear he’s promoting corporate pesticided GMO agriculture.

Update 2015-01-13: More Gates purchases in more counties.

Add Echols County and Lowndes County, Georgia, including much of Lake Park, and Hamilton and Madison Counties, Florida, in addition to what Amber Vann wrote in the VDT and other papers today 22 October 2014, Bill Gates gobbling up Florida farmland

LIVE OAK, Fla. — The investment company that manages the wealth of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has been acquiring gobs of farmland in north Florida the past two years, real estate records show.

Lakeland Sands Florida, a subsidiary of Cascade Investments LLC, which oversees the Gates fortune, recently bought more than 4,500 acres in Suwanee County near McAlpin, an unincorporated community just south of here.

300x529 Southwest Echols County, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, 22 October 2014 Meanwhile, Bill Gates owns Cascade Investment LLC, which owns Los Arboles LLC, which changed its name to Cottonwood Ag Management LLC, which bought land in Echols County on the Alapahoochee River, a year after Bill Gates said he was going to fix agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta.

Cottonwood Ag Management LLC does not own any land in Lowndes, Hamilton, or Madison Counties. But Lakeland Sands does: Continue reading →