Tell your U.S. Senators to support Senate Bill S.2583 Farmland for Farmers Act.
As things currently stand, billionaires like Bill Gates and other corporate entities have way too much power and control over our food supply. At last count in 2020, Gates was the largest private owner of U.S. farmland, snatching up at least 242,000 acres of land for his investment portfolio.
Gates is no farmer. But he’s invested in GMOs, synthetic pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. So it’s clear why he pushes that form of destructive farming. Under Gates’ control, we have seen U.S. potato farms go all in for Simplot’s GMO potatoes. Not long ago, we didn’t have to worry about potatoes being GMO. Now, conventional potatoes are high risk. There is nothing to stop him and others like him from purchasing existing farms and further degrading our food supply. And it’s not just Gates and his fellow billionaires.
Farmland ownership has long been a source of wealth and power in rural America. However, as large corporations continue to gobble up agricultural land as part of their investment strategy, family farmers are being forced out of business. If we continue to allow this, it will shut down more family farms – thousands of them. These are the farmers we depend on for strong local food systems. These are the farmers who care about growing clean, healthy food, clean water, and our climate and environment.
That’s not all. When corporate entities buy farmland as they’re doing, it drives up the value of agricultural lands, putting those lands out of reach for young farmers looking to establish farms on land of their own.
This is serious business. The number of institutionally owned properties rose three-fold from 2009 to 2022, and the market value of that property increased from less than $2 billion dollars to over $14 billion at the same time. Our farmers just can’t afford farmland at those crazy prices.
Our farmland is too precious to allow corporate investors to hoard and treat the land as a speculative commodity. S.2583 would limit future ownership and leasing of U.S. farmland by corporate investors to ensure that farmland in the United States stays in the hands of real farmers.
S.2583 would address several issues within our agriculture sector:
- Protecting Rural Communities: With over 400 million acres of U.S. farmland projected to change hands in the next decade, the bill would take a stand against corporate consolidation that threatens rural communities’ autonomy. If farmland continues to fall under corporate control, it could shut down thousands of family farms and small businesses, eliminate opportunities to live in rural communities, and erode essential public and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.
- Curbing Speculative Investments: The bill would prevent corporations and hedge funds from treating farmland as a speculative investment to mitigate market volatility. Rising farmland prices have created challenges for small and beginning farmers to access land, leading to the unfair advantage of corporate interests over independent family farmers.
- Bringing Transparency in Land Ownership: Multi-level subsidiary structures are used by billionaires like Bill Gates, as well as corporations, to conceal their investments in farmland. The legislation would bring transparency to land ownership.
- Strengthening Federal Land Policies: The bill would address the lack of existing federal oversight, as Wall Street investment in farmland soars and the market becomes more nationalized. Through meaningful reforms, the bill would tackle concerns related to national security, economic competition, domestic food security, and the vitality of farm communities.
- Ensuring Fair Allocation of Farm Programs: Federal agricultural programs are a vital safety net for farmers, but today are being misused by corporate investors to reduce the risk of owning American farmland. The bill would ensure that public farm programs can no longer be utilized by corporate investors, and instead prioritize independent farmers who form the backbone of the farm sector.
Specifically, the Farmland for Farmers Act would:
- Restrict corporations, multilayered subsidiaries, pension funds and investment funds from purchasing or leasing agricultural land. These types of corporations would be allowed to continue owning farmland they already own, but these corporate owners would not have future access to USDA and Farm Credit System programs and benefits, which should not be used to underwrite speculative corporate farmland investments.
- Not apply to corporations with 25 or fewer shareholders, partners, members, or beneficial owners who are all actively engaged in farming; nonprofit corporations; farmer cooperatives; or to farmland owned by a legal entity formed by owners of heirs’ property.
- Strengthen State authority to regulate corporations, both domestic and foreign, involved in farmland ownership.
- Authorize imposition of penalties on corporate entities that violate ownership restrictions.
Tell your U.S. Senators to co-sponsor and pass S.2583, Farmland for Farmers Act today. Keep farmland in the hands of real farmers!
You can read the full S.2583 text HERE.
