Bill Gates Asked to Testify in Congress Amid Fears He May Force Americans to Eat Synthetic Beef
18:45 GMT 20.07.2022 (Updated: 19:50 GMT 17.10.2022)
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The North Dakota Attorney General’s Office approved the Microsoft founder’s $13.5 million purchase of some 2,100 acres of prime farmland in the Peace Garden State earlier this month following a probe into whether the deal broke a local Depression-era law meant to protect family farms against predatory leasing arrangements.
Congressman Dusty Johnson has appealed to the House Agricultural Committee asking it to bring Bill Gates before the committee to testify on his practice of buying up prime US farmland, and the billionaire’s plans for said farmland.
“It has become clear in recent reports that Mr. Gates is the largest private farmland owner in America – he now owns nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across 19 states. Comparatively, the average farm size in 2021 was 445 acres, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. I believe that Mr. Gates’ holdings across much of our nation is a significant portion that the Committee should not ignore,” Johnson wrote Wednesday in a letter addressed to committee chairman David Scott.
“The Committee should be interested in Mr. Gates’ ownership and plans for his acreage, as he has been a leading voice in the push for ‘synthetic meat’. In 2021, Mr. Gates was quoted to say ‘all rich countries should move to 100 percent synthetic beef’ to combat climate change,” the congressman from South Dakota wrote, linking to Gates’ 2021 controversial comments to MIT journal Technology Review.
In that interview, Gates suggested that “sadly,” he couldn’t think of any “natural approach” to resolving the methane pollution caused by cows’ breaking down of the grass they consume, and that he was “afraid the synthetic [protein alternatives] will be required for at least the beef thing.”
For the developing world, Gates said that “we’ll have to use animal genetics to dramatically raise the amount of beef per emissions for them,” and that in Africa, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was already “working” in this direction. “So no, I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100 percent synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” he said.
“As the ranking member of the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee and the sole congressional member from South Dakota –where there are over four beef cattle for every resident – I am especially interested in Mr. Gates’ agricultural aspirations,” Johnson wrote in his letter to chairman Scott.
Separately, in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday morning, the congressman explained that he would like the billionaire to testify because “ownership of farmland matters, a lot,” and because “no one has been buying it up faster than Bill Gates.”
“Our country deserves to hear from him what he has planned for this incredibly productive agricultural land,” Johnson stressed.
Gates’ buy-up of some 2,100 acres of prime North Dakota farmland, which the state attorney general’s office recently cleared after a probe checking whether it was in compliance with a law aimed at protecting family farms from predatory landholders, has come under renewed scrutiny this week.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Gates’ investment firm Cascade Investment assured the New York Post that there was “absolutely no connection” between the tech billionaire-turned philanthropist and the Fufeng Group, a Chinese company which purchased some 370 acres of farmland not far from Gates, and near a US Air Force base housing advanced US drone technology.
The dual purchases by Gates and the Chinese company sparked concerns earlier this month about why the US government “allows” such transactions to take place, notwithstanding the potential security implications.
Bill Gates just bought 2,100 acres of farmland in North Dakota, adding to the 270,000 acres he inexplicably owns throughout the US
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 6, 2022
China also just bought 300 acres there, adding to the 192,000 acres of US Soil in their portfolio
…and no one seems to care
Why do we allow this?
Gates has earned the ire of conservatives, leftist anti-corporate activists and bodily autonomy campaigners in the US and around the world for his activities, particularly his highly active role during the coronavirus pandemic sponsoring and promoting vaccinations, his bankrolling of hundreds of media outlets to the tune of $319 million, and his associations with the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates’ activities have made him a prime target of conspiracy-minded observers online. In May, #BillGatesBioTerrorist trended after netizens blamed him for monkeypox after it was revealed that a Gates-funded non-profit modeled what would happen if a bioengineered, highly deadly strain of the virus was released by terrorists and spread across the globe back in 2021.
The billionaire has dismissed the conspiracy theories against him, and said it was “tragic” if people believed them – particularly as they relate to Covid vaccines.
