The law was designed to protect family farms in North Dakota. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Bill Gates' purchase of North Dakota farmland has been cleared by the state's attorney general.
It had initially raised legal questions due to an archaic law that dates back to the Great Depression.
The sale has been found to comply with the law because the land will be leased back to farmers, per The AP.
BILL GATES JUST RELEASED HIS 5-BOOK READING LIST FOR THE SUMMER — HERE'S WHAT'S ON IT
Bill Gates has released his annual summer reading list.
The five books tackle matters like gender equality, political polarization, and more.
Here are the books Gates enjoyed and recommends others read too.
Summer's around the corner again, and Bill Gates has named the books he recommends people read during the season.
On Monday, Gates announced his 2022 summer reading list, which includes five books he enjoyed but admits do "not exactly sound like the stuff of beach reads."
"As I was putting together my list of suggested reading for the summer, I realized that the topics they cover sound pretty heavy for vacation reading," he wrote in a blog post. "There are books here about gender equality, political polarization, climate change, and the hard truth that life never goes the way young people think it will."
"But none of the five books below feel heavy," Gates continued. "Each of the writers—three novelists, a journalist, and a scientist—was able to take a meaty subject and make it compelling without sacrificing any complexity."
Bill Gates has been cleared to proceed with the purchase of a North Dakota potato farm after the state's attorney general said it complied with an archaic Depression-era law.
This is because the land will be leased back to farmers, according to The Associated Press, which reported the news.
The buyer, Red River Trust, is linked to Gates, who is the largest owner of farmland in the US.
The $13.5 million purchase of the farmland originally raised legal questions due to a decades-old state law that prohibited corporations, trusts, and limited liability companies from farming activities in the region. The law is designed to protect family farms in North Dakota.
The anti-corporate farming law does, however, allow individual trusts to own the land if it is leased to farmers, per The AP.
The state's agricultural commissioner, Doug Goehring, told a local NBC affiliate that people across the state were "upset" and others were "livid" about the purchase.
On June 21, the North Dakota attorney general's office sent a letter about the purchase to Red River Trust. The letter notified a trustee, Peter Headley, that the attorney general's office was seeking to confirm how the company was using the farmland and learn if its usage was compliant with statutory exceptions, Insider reported.