Billionaires like Bill Gates understand more than most people that a food crisis is coming to the United States – and they are prepared to weather it out in their luxury survival bunkers.
“There’s an old saying that, if you want to know where to put your money, look at where the rich people are investing,” noted farmer, lecturer and author Joel Salatin during an appearance on “Liberty and Finance.”
“And so, you know, the fact that Bill Gates is now the largest farmland owner in the U.S., the fact that I’ve had several billionaires call me in the last year asking ‘How do I set up an agrarian bunker [for] when things collapse so I’ll be protected with my family?’ Those are what I call little flags that go off in your head … [telling you] ‘Oh, that’s happening, this is happening.’” (Related: Tech billionaires are buying up large-scale bunkers and survival gear in preparation for what’s coming.)
Gates is currently the largest landowner in the United States. In an online interview on the social media website Reddit, Gates claimed that his ownership of about 270,000 acres of farmland spread across 18 states only represents one-four thousandths of all farmland in the country.
While it is true that Gates is nowhere near owning even a majority of farmland in the country, the total number of acres of farmland that he owns does represent more than one-third of the land area of Rhode Island, which is a surprising amount of land for just one person to own.
Gates isn’t alone in seizing up farmland. Billionaires and corporations alike are grabbing up as much farmland as they can, pricing out young farmers looking to start their own operations.
More and more Americans are becoming food insecure
In his latest State of the Union address, President Joe Biden claimed that the inflation crisis and its effects on the food supply are starting to ease.
But both the facts and the spending habits of America’s billionaire class are clearly proving Biden wrong.
Advocates for food equity in the U.S. have pointed out that food is still far too expensive for millions of Americans and food insecurity is on the rise.
More Americans who rely on food stamps have reported skipping meals, eating less and turning to charities like food banks to manage food costs in January.
According to a survey by Provider, a smartphone app that has partnered with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help people with their finances, 29.2 percent of survey respondents in January, all of whom were on food stamps, skipped meals. This is up by three percentage points from December.
Around 20 percent of respondents said they had to rely on aid from family and friends to help sustain themselves. This is up nine percentage points from last month. Nearly a third said they ate less food to manage rising food costs, up two percentage points from December. Nearly a quarter said they visited a food bank in the past month, up nearly three percentage points from last month.
All of this data proves that America is still experiencing a food crisis, and the nation’s billionaires like Gates are preparing by hoarding all of the farmland and preparing to retreat to their luxury bunkers.