The American Family Farm Protection Act
The Issue
**Purpose:** Keep farmland in the hands of the families who work it. Stop non-farming billionaires, investment funds and corporations from piling up farmland, and help working and beginning farmers buy land, with sellers paid fairly as the Constitution requires.
**Findings**
1. **Bill Gates is America's largest private farmland owner.** The Land Report credits him with about 250,000 acres of farm ground across 17 states, and in 2025 it put his total holdings at 275,000 acres.
2. **He's still buying.** He bought Canada Pension Plan Investment Board farmland in 2017 and Washington's Horse Heaven Hills ground in 2018, for more than $690 million combined. In 2025 a Gates-linked LLC added 8,080 acres for about $131 million.
3. **North Dakota's anti-corporate farming law didn't stop him.** A Gates trust paid $13.5 million for about 2,100 acres. In June 2022 the Attorney General's office ruled the deal legal because the land was leased back to a farming partnership.
4. **He says it isn't about climate.** In his own words: "My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate."
5. **He has called for changing what Americans eat.** He said "all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef," and he has invested in Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and cell-cultured meat maker UPSIDE Foods.
6. **The Gates-funded African farm program missed its goals.** AGRA, mainly Gates-funded, received more than $1 billion and promised to double yields and incomes for 30 million households by 2020. An evaluation its funders commissioned found it "did not meet its headline goal."
7. **Gates money funds patented seed and gene-editing work,** including Gates Ag One and a $3.87 million yam gene-editing grant with Pairwise, a company backed by Bayer's investment arm.
8. **The problem is bigger than one man.** Foreign interests hold nearly 45 million acres of U.S. farmland, and about 300 million acres could change hands in the next 20 years.
9. **Current law has gaps.** Courts have struck down parts of state anti-corporate farming laws. Since March 2025, U.S. companies no longer have to report their real owners to FinCEN, the Treasury agency that collected that information.
**Provisions**
1. **Acreage cap.** Non-farming billionaires, investment funds and non-family corporations can't buy farmland past a national cap (for example, 10,000 acres) or past a set share of any county. As a federal law it treats every state alike, which avoids the problem that sank state laws.
2. **Close the loopholes.** Acres held through trusts, LLCs and partnerships count toward the real owner's cap, and leasing land back to a farmer no longer gets around it.
3. **Gradual divestment.** Holdings over the cap must be sold over 10 to 15 years, at a fair market value set by independent appraisal. The Constitution requires paying owners whose land is taken, and the Supreme Court upheld a paid breakup of concentrated landholding in *Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff* (1984).
4. **Right of first refusal.** The current tenant farmer gets first chance to buy divested land, then beginning farmers, then neighboring family farms.
5. **Steep discounts for farmers, full price for sellers.** Farmers buy well below market, and public money covers the gap so the seller still gets fair value. That means bigger FSA down-payment loans and land-contract guarantees, funding for farmland easements, and federal tax breaks for selling to beginning farmers, modeled on Iowa's.
6. **Public ownership registry.** Every large landholder must disclose the actual person who owns the land. The registry is searchable, with penalties for lying and a reward for whistleblowers.
7. **Seed freedom.** Seed developed with public money must allow farmers to save and replant it, and must be licensed fairly. Foundations that fund patented seed work must disclose ties between their insiders and the companies licensing it.
8. **Honest labels.** Lab-grown and plant-based products must say "lab-grown" or "plant-based" clearly on the front of the package.
9. **Enforcement.** A USDA Family Farm Ownership Office enforces the law, publishes a yearly report on land concentration, and can impose civil penalties.
**Call to action:** America was built on land owned by the people who work it. Tell Congress to pass the American Family Farm Protection Act. Sign the petition:
20
The Issue
**Purpose:** Keep farmland in the hands of the families who work it. Stop non-farming billionaires, investment funds and corporations from piling up farmland, and help working and beginning farmers buy land, with sellers paid fairly as the Constitution requires.
**Findings**
1. **Bill Gates is America's largest private farmland owner.** The Land Report credits him with about 250,000 acres of farm ground across 17 states, and in 2025 it put his total holdings at 275,000 acres.
2. **He's still buying.** He bought Canada Pension Plan Investment Board farmland in 2017 and Washington's Horse Heaven Hills ground in 2018, for more than $690 million combined. In 2025 a Gates-linked LLC added 8,080 acres for about $131 million.
3. **North Dakota's anti-corporate farming law didn't stop him.** A Gates trust paid $13.5 million for about 2,100 acres. In June 2022 the Attorney General's office ruled the deal legal because the land was leased back to a farming partnership.
4. **He says it isn't about climate.** In his own words: "My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate."
5. **He has called for changing what Americans eat.** He said "all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef," and he has invested in Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and cell-cultured meat maker UPSIDE Foods.
6. **The Gates-funded African farm program missed its goals.** AGRA, mainly Gates-funded, received more than $1 billion and promised to double yields and incomes for 30 million households by 2020. An evaluation its funders commissioned found it "did not meet its headline goal."
7. **Gates money funds patented seed and gene-editing work,** including Gates Ag One and a $3.87 million yam gene-editing grant with Pairwise, a company backed by Bayer's investment arm.
8. **The problem is bigger than one man.** Foreign interests hold nearly 45 million acres of U.S. farmland, and about 300 million acres could change hands in the next 20 years.
9. **Current law has gaps.** Courts have struck down parts of state anti-corporate farming laws. Since March 2025, U.S. companies no longer have to report their real owners to FinCEN, the Treasury agency that collected that information.
**Provisions**
1. **Acreage cap.** Non-farming billionaires, investment funds and non-family corporations can't buy farmland past a national cap (for example, 10,000 acres) or past a set share of any county. As a federal law it treats every state alike, which avoids the problem that sank state laws.
2. **Close the loopholes.** Acres held through trusts, LLCs and partnerships count toward the real owner's cap, and leasing land back to a farmer no longer gets around it.
3. **Gradual divestment.** Holdings over the cap must be sold over 10 to 15 years, at a fair market value set by independent appraisal. The Constitution requires paying owners whose land is taken, and the Supreme Court upheld a paid breakup of concentrated landholding in *Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff* (1984).
4. **Right of first refusal.** The current tenant farmer gets first chance to buy divested land, then beginning farmers, then neighboring family farms.
5. **Steep discounts for farmers, full price for sellers.** Farmers buy well below market, and public money covers the gap so the seller still gets fair value. That means bigger FSA down-payment loans and land-contract guarantees, funding for farmland easements, and federal tax breaks for selling to beginning farmers, modeled on Iowa's.
6. **Public ownership registry.** Every large landholder must disclose the actual person who owns the land. The registry is searchable, with penalties for lying and a reward for whistleblowers.
7. **Seed freedom.** Seed developed with public money must allow farmers to save and replant it, and must be licensed fairly. Foundations that fund patented seed work must disclose ties between their insiders and the companies licensing it.
8. **Honest labels.** Lab-grown and plant-based products must say "lab-grown" or "plant-based" clearly on the front of the package.
9. **Enforcement.** A USDA Family Farm Ownership Office enforces the law, publishes a yearly report on land concentration, and can impose civil penalties.
**Call to action:** America was built on land owned by the people who work it. Tell Congress to pass the American Family Farm Protection Act. Sign the petition:
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Petition created on October 24, 2026