Most landowners in the United States are not farmers. Among the richest people in the United States and the world, for example, Bill Gates owns huge holdings of land in his country. However, he is only in the middle among the largest landowners, behind fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
More and more land is needed to get the top list
Anyone who wants to be on the list of the top 100 landowners in the United States in 2021 must own at least 63,158 hectares of land.
The largest landowners in the United States expanded their holdings by hundreds of thousands of hectares again last year. This is one of the key findings in the 2021 Land Report, published by Hungarian Agriculture With the help of his article.
While the areas owned by the top 100 landowners continued to grow in 2021, the amount of land required to enter the top 100 landowners also increased at the same time.
In 2007, “only” 30,364 hectares was enough for 100th place, but in 2021, more than twice what was required to join the elite club.
They are the largest landowners
Who were the largest landowners in the United States last year?
The Emerson family of California, owner of Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), became the largest landowner in the United States last year. They expanded their vast estate with another 175,000 acres in Oregon. The deal, which took place on October 1, increased the family’s holdings to more than 943,300 hectares.
John Malone, who owns Liberty Media (among other things, the media group that owns Formula 1), slipped from first place to second place in 2021. The entrepreneur owns 890,700 hectares of farmland in the western part of the United States and many forests in the Northeast.
In third place in 2021 (as in the previous year) was the Reed family from Washington with an area of 850,200 hectares. The Reed family’s holdings are primarily divided between Washington, Oregon, and California.
Media mogul Ted Turner ranked fourth with an area of 809,700 hectares. Most of the Turner’s land is used to graze more than 50,000 bison – the world’s largest private herd.
Stan Kroenke – who owns Arsenal among his many sports interests – ranked fifth with an area of 658,900 hectares. By the way, Kronk married Anne Walton, heiress to the huge Wal-Mart fortune.
With nearly 108,900 hectares, Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, is the largest owner of arable land in America. The Earth Report has not yet announced last year’s rating of Gates, but in 2020 it was “only” 49th.
By the way, this left him behind the twenty-fifth place Jeff Bezos, whose total area is about 170 thousand hectares. Most of his land is located in West Texas.
