Bill Gates is in trouble over his onions in Georgia

The business acumen of software magnate Bill Gates, which made him the world's richest person, may not apply to onions. A farm owned by a Gates-related company is on probation in Georgia after neighbouring farmers accused it of substituting garden-variety bulbs for renowned Vidalias, the Bordeaux grapes of the onion world.
The farm was disciplined in June for a lesser violation and paid no fine, although it lost onions valued at more than $100,000 when they rotted during the probe, according to state estimates.

"We felt that spoilage that took place was discipline enough," said Gary Black, Georgia's commissioner of agriculture. If it errs again, the farm could forfeit its licence, state officials say .

L'Affaire Vidalia left bruised feelings in the region along with questions, including the big one that's been lingering since the Gates company bought what is known as Stanley Farms in October: Why is the richest man on the planet growing onions? South Georgia rumors to the contrary , it's not linked to Gates' interest in promoting agriculture reform through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.

"The investment in the farm is not a foundation investment and doesn't have anything to do with foundation work," which is focused solely on the developing world, said foundation spokesman Christopher Williams.

'HOT COMMODITY'

More likely, the farmland is just an investment for the Microsoft cofounder and chairman, whose estimated net worth is about $85 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

"It's a hot commodity all over the world," billionaire investor Jim Rogers said last month in an interview. Farm returns are good when equity returns aren't, and big investors have noticed, said Bruce Sherrick, director of the TIAA-CREF Center for Farmland Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The investor-owners buy enough land to spread out fixed costs and boost production, he said.

Such cross-farm efficiencies appear to have been what got Farmer Gates in trouble in the hyper-vigilant Vidalia onion world. Gates interests first discovered the water-rich Southeast three years ago, when limited-liability companies using the address of Cascade Investment in Kirkland, Washington, began buying hundreds of acres in Georgia and Florida.One listed Michael Larson, Cascade's fund manager, as its governing person.

Gates owns Cascade, a private investment firm.