LINCOLN- For several years now, federal records indicated that a sizable portion of farmland, roughly 22,830 acres, was owned by a farmland investment startup called AgCoA, with the owner's name remaining unlisted. However, through recently released financial and loan details, it was revealed that Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder, spent nearly $113 million buying Nebraska farmland through AgCoA.

Across 19 counties, Gates, through the shell company AgCoA, now owns about 20,000 acres after recently selling several thousand. The largest stretch of land, equating to 8,500 acres and formally titled Mt. Edna Farms, resides in Holt County. "I think if you ask on the street, who owns Mt. Edna Farms, nobody'd even know what it was," said Bill Tielke, chair of the Holt County Board, "I don't remember it throwing up any bells or whistles or anybody even saying anything about it."

The Nebraska Farm Bureau, through spokesperson Cassie Hoebelheinrich, declined to comment on Gate's farmland ownership in the state. "This is an issue we really don't follow and isn't a priority for us," they said. Gates' land ownership, upon its revelation, has been the subject of concern for some Nebraskans. According to state Sen. Tom Brewer, if Gates' land was given to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a nonprofit, and subsequently became exempt from property taxes, it would "decimate" the counties involved. "It would force action from the Legislature to protect the counties," he said.

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