Benton County assessor records show that 100C LLC closed on the 28 parcels at the beginning of May. All are crop circles located in the uplands north of the Columbia River between Paterson and Crow Butte. Collectively they make up enough land to cover 12.5 square miles.

Delaware-based 100C LLC is linked to Cottonwood Ag Management, an agricultural asset management firm that oversees Gates’ farmland holdings. Jeff Janosky, western region president for Cottonwood, was the agent who signed the real estate excise tax affidavit for the sale. 

Cottonwood is a subsidiary of Cascade Asset Management, which manages the assets of the Gates Foundation Trust. A spokesperson for Cascade declined a request for comment on the sale and plans for the properties.

The purchase adds to Gates’ already extensive holdings in the region. 100C LLC purchased 14,500 acres in that same part of Benton County in 2018, paying $171 million.  

Gates, who is among those with the largest farmland holdings in the U.S., also made a bid for the 22,500-acre collection of Benton County farms owned by Easterday Ranches Inc. and Easterday Farms when they went to auction in 2021. Farmland Reserve Inc., a Utah-based nonprofit related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was the winning bidder for that farmland. 

The Land Report ranks Bill Gates at No. 41 on its list of the nation’s Top 100 U.S. Landowners, and the nation’s largest private farmland owner. He owns more than 250,000 acres of highly productive farmland spread out over 17 states, according to the report. Much of Gates’s acreage was bought in huge tranches, including a group of farmland assets owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board that was acquired in 2017 and the 2018 acquisition of the 100 Circles acreage in the Horse Heaven Hills of Eastern Washington. Those two purchases alone total an investment of more than $690 million in farmland assets. 

Gates has said that his agricultural investments aim to boost productivity and create jobs rather than serve as part of a larger scheme, according to Yahoo Finance News. 

Corporations also are buying up farmland, particularly in the West, in an effort to secure water rights. Property owners can “bank” their water rights with the state, creating flexibility for them to essentially sell water, which is becoming increasingly scarce as shown by repeated droughts and the failure for snowpack to replenish every winter.