Will Harris is the owner of White Oak Pastures, one of the top regenerative ranching operations in the country. His outlook is that farmers should care for and build the soil while treating the livestock well and providing good-paying jobs to help keep the operation going, rather than just using factory-farming of cheap grains or poorly treated cows and poultry to make a quick buck while the soil holds out.
As a result, his farmland is healthy and his farm vibrant. Instead of exhausting the soil with chemicals and fertilizers, he uses the manure of the animals and regenerative farming techniques to bring the land to life in a healthy, traditional way. It’s not groundbreaking; it’s what farmers and peasants across Europe did to keep their land healthy for generations. But it’s the polar opposite of what many factory farming operations do.
And so the owner of White Oak Pastures, which has been farmed for over 150 years now, came out swinging against Bill Gates, the climate crazed Microsoft founder who is now one of the largest holders of farmland in America.
Speaking about Gates’ ownership of valuable American farmland, Harris said, “Hell yeah I have concerns about Gates controlling farmland. Just like I don’t want a child abuser controlling even one child, I don’t want him to control a single acre.”
Continuing, Harris said that letting Gates run farms is a terrible idea because he has no real understanding of how to properly steward the land, preserving its soil and vitality instead of wasting rich, nutrient-dense soil built up over centuries on cheap cereal crops.
“First, land is precious. It may be more precious than anything. I hate to see someone, who has no idea what to do with it, be put in a position to control it. How well do you think that I would do running a tech company or financial institution? It’s the same logic as letting a guy like Gates manage something as complex as an ecosystem. He lacks the understanding to steward it properly,” Harris said.
Harris wasn’t done. He then noted that he thinks there are irregularities in how the farmland has been bought up, saying, “Second, the whole deal has been kept way too secretive. An article that was dated May 4, 2021, informed us that Gates has purchased over 200,000 acres in 18 states. Georgia was not listed as one of the 18 states, but an acquaintance of mine sold his farm located in Georgia to Gates prior to that time. What else are they lying about?”
Still not done, Harris blasted Gates’ tech-centric outlook, saying that technology is, when it comes to farming, the problem rather than the cure. “Third. Gates believes that the cure for all problems is more technology. Everything looks like a nail if your only tool is a hammer. I have a deep understanding of how misapplied technology is responsible for most of the land management problems that we are experiencing today,” Harris argued.
And, ripping into Gates’ attacks on farm animals as being responsible for climate change, Harris argued, “He does not understand that proper animal impact is not responsible for climate change. In fact, proper animal impact is an essential component for the mitigation of climate change. This environmental mitigation cannot be replicated within a monocultural pea and soy farming operation.”
Harris then pounced on Gates’ failed African and Indian initiatives, writing, “Fifth, ask the farmers of India and Africa how beneficial Gates’ influence was to their agricultural systems. If you research the failed AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) program you’ll get a sneak peak [sic] on the repercussions of letting a businessman make farming decisions. That billionaire-leopard ain’t gonna change the spots that made him the most powerful man in the world.”
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