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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by jetrink on Thursday January 14, 2021 @01:29PM (#25780120)
In terms of land ownership, they are outdone by billionaire Stan Kroenke who owns several large ranches in Texas, including Waggoner Ranch, which is over 500,000 acres in size and surrounded by a single fence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggoner_Ranch

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by Animats on Thursday January 14, 2021 @01:43PM (#25780354)
That "ranch" has 1,100 oil wells.

Something similar happened to the King Ranch. More oil, less beef.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by jetrink on Thursday January 14, 2021 @03:10PM (#25781798)
Indeed. I first learned about the megaranches from Edna Ferber's 1952 novel Giant and the transformation is a major theme of the book. (Incidentally, I created an account on some forum while I was reading the book and out of laziness borrowed the name of one of the characters, Jett Rink. I have used that name on the internet ever since.)
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by thehappypm on Thursday January 14, 2021 @02:08PM (#25780730)
I don't think ranches count as farmland -- I mean, ranches aren't farms in any meaningful sense.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by fireattack on Thursday January 14, 2021 @03:41PM (#25782180)
It's not, but he said "[i]n terms of land ownership".
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by exclusiv on Friday January 15, 2021 @01:27AM (#25787675)
Ted Turner has like 2M acres[1]. I can't find it, but I had read a story awhile back where he was trying to acquire enough land where he could ride a horse from like the southern border to the northern on only his land.

John Malone is #1 I guess, but I thought that Ted Turner approach was pretty badass. Ted Turner also has a herd of 50k bison.

"With approximately two million acres of personal and ranch land, Ted Turner is the second largest individual landholder in North America. Turner lands are innovatively managed to unite economic viability with ecological sustainability. Turner ranches operate as working businesses, relying on bison, hunting and fishing, and ecotourism as principal enterprises. In addition, Turner ranches support many progressive environmental projects including water resource and timber management, and the reintroduction of native species to the land." [2]

I like that.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/who-are-the-top-10-land-owne...

[2] https://www.tedturner.com/turner-ranches/

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by prawn on Thursday January 14, 2021 @06:26PM (#25784532)
Meanwhile, there's one cattle station in Australia which is 5,851,000 acres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Creek_Station

Drove through it a few months ago (and another time decades ago). It completely surrounds the township of William Creek, and the main road (well, track) in the area goes through the station for quite some time.