LDS Inc. owns .7% of Florida
My brother-in-law came to visit last weekend. As science geeks, we tried to see a shuttle launch while he was here (the launch was canceled 11 minutes before liftoff because of weather – ugh!). On the way to watch the launch we stopped by Deseret Citrus and Cattle Ranch to see the Mormon Church’s ranching operations:
sign by main entrance
Alas, as former Mormons, we failed to consider that they wouldn’t offer tours on Sunday. But we stopped by the Visitor’s Center anyway and drove around a bit. Here’s the Visitor’s Center:
the Visitor's Center
I knew from the Deseret Ranches’ website and this wikipedia page that the ranch was big, but actually driving around the ranch made me wonder just how big it is. So, I spent a good 10 hours or so trying to see if I could map out just how big the ranch is. After all that time, I realized it was simply too big for me to easily map out by myself. But, the research I did do provided me with some fascinating information.
First off, thanks to a corporation registration website in Florida, I was able to track the name changes of the holding companies for the ranch over the years, eventually finding the current name. It used to be Deseret Properties of Florida, Inc., Deseret Farms, Inc., Deseret Farms Inc., Deseret Ranches of Florida, Inc., Deseret Livestock Company, Deseret Properties of Florida, Inc., Deseret Ranches of Florida, Inc. (1), Deseret Ranches of Florida, Inc. (2), but it is now called Farmland Reserve, Inc.. Once I finally found the current holding company, I was able to visit the property tax appraisers’ websites for the three main counties where the ranch is located: Osceola, Orange, and Brevard. On those sites I found all the property listings of Farmland Reserve, Inc. Here’s a summary of what I found after I added them all up:
| County | Acres | Value |
| Osceola | 182,685.50 | $763,252,812.00 |
| Orange | 64,843.57 | $208,286,252.00 |
| Brevard | 41,559.66 | $12,552,680.00 |
| Hillsborough-FRI | 3,952.94 | $30,145,012.00 |
| Total | 293,041.67 | $1,014,236,756.00 |
Yep, you’re eyes do not deceive you – LDS, Inc. has more than $1 billion in for-profit property in Florida. The acres convert to 457 square miles, or .7% of the State of Florida. I can’t say for certain, but my guess is that LDS, Inc. is the largest landholder in the state behind the government. For comparative purposes, Disney owns 25,000 acres (that’s all of their properties, not just Disney World), or about 1/12th of the land owned by the LDS, Inc. holding company.
To tally all of this information, I actually built a spreadsheet that you’re welcome to download and peruse. I also started drawing the land parcels in Google Earth, but once I realized just how many there were, I decided I just didn’t have the time. I did complete all the land in Orange County and started on the land in Osceola County. If you want to see the maps or, better yet, if you’d like to improve/complete the maps, you can download them here: Orange County, Osceola County. If you do download them and improve them, please send me a copy of the updated versions as I’d like to have them.
As I was searching through these listings, on a whim I decided to see if Farmland Reserve, Inc. owned any property in my county, Hillsborough, FL, which is all the way across the state from Osceola and Brevard Counties. Turns out they do (see above table). That’s in addition to the $12 million owned by “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Corporation”, which is the company that holds the churches. This makes me wonder just how much property Farmland Reserve Inc. owns. I checked a couple additional counties in Florida but didn’t find any more property.
One of the reasons I wanted to visit the ranch is because my aunt and uncle recently completed a mission there (I should have gone while they were there, but never made it). The amazing thing about the fact that they served a mission there is that they did zero proselytizing and they paid to serve their mission. So, what did they do? My uncle was a high school shop teacher. He knows how to build and repair homes. So, they put him to work building homes on the ranch. He’s round 70 years old and was working 12 hour days 6 days a week for 18 months. His wife ran some of the tours and did other odd jobs around the ranch. When I found out that my aunt and uncle were paying for the opportunity to work for Farmland Reserve, Inc., a billion dollar for profit company, I was not very happy. Not only did the LDS Church use tithing money to buy the ranch (I’m assuming, maybe it was profit from some other business venture), but now it makes people pay for the opportunity to make one of their subsidiaries money. How is that at all ethical?
To wit, the obvious question is: How does the billion dollar ranching operation of the LDS Church further its religious aims? Why does a religion need a billion dollar ranch? Anyone?
Finally, all this searching around for property owned by LDS, Inc. led me to realize that we, the MSP community, could probably put together a pretty good estimate of the property holdings of LDS, Inc. (in the US at least) fairly easily if we distributed the work among us. If each person looked up the holdings of LDS, Inc. in their county and put them in a spreadsheet, we could aggregate them and keep a running total of known property value of the LDS religion. It would make a cool little widget for MSP to display. Thoughts?
LDS Law Student first comment:
LDS Law Student realizing his mistake and applying funny logic to justify his ignorance:
So, the Church does benefit from free labor, but that’s okay now that you know they do, despite the insinuation from your first post that the Church never would?
Ahhh… So refreshing to observe blind faith in action, “If the leaders of the religion do it, it must be right. Even if I just said that doing so would probably be wrong.”
Profxm,
I admitted I was wrong about the farm being for-profit. At least I can be honest and admit when I’m wrong.
“If the leaders of the religion do it, it must be right. Even if I just said that doing so would probably be wrong.”
That’s just it. You are insinuating that the leaders are somehow profiting off of missionary work and off the commercial entities of the church; they are not. It is this sentiment that I was addressing. I have no problem with the church owning .7% or 70% of Florida. I have no problem with members asking to serve as missionaries to further the goals of the church. If you want to call that blind obedience, go ahead and think whatever you need to think about me and every other Mormon to justify your actions and your “blind” hatred.
You missed the point.
Props to you for admitting you were wrong.
Props withdrawn for only admitting you were wrong when you found out that the brethren were doing something you thought was unethical and then changing whether or not you think it is unethical because the brethren are doing it.
This is what I call “blind faith”: You can’t be convinced by rational arguments (though, in all fairness, that remains to be seen), but you find out that the leadership of the religion are employing volunteers in their for-profit businesses and suddenly that’s okay. In other words, reason doesn’t change your mind, but your obedience to the leadership of your religion does. That’s not rational. That’s irrational. That’s blind faith.
BTW, stop playing the “you’re all bigoted, hate-filled anti-Mormons” card. It won’t win you any friends here. I have Mormons I care deeply about staying in my home right now. Most of our families are still Mormon. We can disagree with you without hating you. We can even think some of the things you believe are abhorrent and still be nice to you. Just because we aren’t Mormon doesn’t mean we are anti-Mormon. And just because we used to be Mormon doesn’t mean we’re no longer human.
We don’t ban people from posting on MSP, but if you keep flaming, you’ll get flame back.
So, in regard to your relatives that served a mission, I suppose to them and to the Church, it doesn’t matter whether their mission work was on a not-for-profit farm or a for-profit farm because the reserves from the commercial entities are used to further build the Kingdom of God. This would only be disturbing if certain persons received more money based on the Church’s income, but such is not the case and never will be.
You’re dead certain, then, that the CEO and so on of Farmland Reserve Inc. and other church-owned for-profit companies never get performance bonuses, a perfectly ordinary form of compensation for executives in American corporations?
I think the Church’s financial machinations ought to be a model for all. …If only our government could operate similar to the LDS Church, we would be vastly more wealthy as a nation than we are today.
So… the government should keep all its financial affairs a secret? Nobody outside government should know how much money the government gets or has or how it uses it?
I still agree with my comments in #43 that a call for transparency is simply that, a request for transparency. LDS law student, thank you for your comments. I think we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the information (about Deseret Management and the not for profit LDS church) were available to the public. But they are not.
Also, not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet or not, but LDS General Authorities are paid a stipend. Stake Presidents and bishops are not (to my knowledge), but the leadership in SLC is paid. So the ministry is not completely unpaid.
If being honest and pointing out that General Authorities are paid a stipend is anti-mormon, or asking for religions to be transparent in their financial reporting is anti-mormon – than I must be anti-mormon.
Your consternation at the size and profitability of the Deseret Ranch appears to emanate from an outsiders perspective of the concepts of Church welfare, missionary service, and faith. I spent enough time as a non-member to understand why some of these concepts would seem foreign and potentially violate your personal sense of ethics, but there are a few facts you failed to dredge up in all that sleuthing about how big the ranch really is. If you had bothered to get information before you got there, you would have been treated to a free tour of the ranch by the wonderful sister missionaries (like your aunt), full openness about how much land it covers, how many head of cattle they have, and a host of other interesting facts. You might also have gotten a clue as to why it isn’t a “welfare farm”, but an operating, for-profit venture. The profits go directly back into the Church funds for temple and meeting house construction, humanitarian aid, and a host of other church activities that directly benefit the members and the communities in which they live.
As for your aunt and uncle serving their missions there, 1- serving the mission was their choice. Not one forced them to labor as they did, and if it were detrimental to their health, they were perfectly free to walk away from it at any time. 2- You obviously don’t understand the faith, love, and personal fulfillment that service to your God and your community can bring. And this isn’t a Mormon thing. It’s a religious thing. The confirmation of the blessings received when in the service of the Lord are verified from millions, perhaps billions of people of all faiths. Why are you using their faithful gift that they chose themselves to render as evidence of some “unethical” practice? Get a clue. This isn’t a Mormon thing at all, and it’s hard to understand why you are criticizing them for the practice of their faith.
Furthermore, you have calculated the extent of real estate holding of the LDS church and it turns out to be what you consider to be a big number. Have you ever thought to try to calculate the real estate holdings of the Catholic Church? Or, to put it in perspective, have you ever thought to calculate the holdings of all religious bodies on the earth, and compare how much the LDS church owns to that? Please, spare me. Yes, the Deseret Ranch is the largest ranch in America but there is a reason for that, and you have just really not dug deep enough nor taken the time to get data for comparison that is meaningful and relevant.
And yes, you are an anti-Mormon. There is no law in this land that says that any church has to make their financial reporting totally transparent to the world. Where is your assessment of any other church on the same issue? What’s your comparison? There isn’t any. I seriously do not understand your consternation at this concept. If you weren’t anti-Mormon, you would have taken the time to talk to the Mormons and get the facts and realize that most of them are like your aunt and uncle, whom it puzzles me that you didn’t spend the time to get to know to understand why they do what they do, and what it really means. You had a perfect opportunity to have the real inside track there, see things maybe even the average visitor doesn’t get to see, and bam, you let the chance slip by. Congratulations. I guess you’d rather waste your time digging for information they would have given you in a few minute chat with them. I feel sad for you.
To comment #2- The LDS church divested itself of a number of commercial holdings in the late 1970′s I believe to focus more on ecclesiastical affairs. The Church Ranch, in contrast, serves ecclesiastical purposes on many levels, including the principal of welfare. If you want to do more research on that, I’m sure the Salt Lake newspaper archives can help you in that time period.
Hey Helmut (comment #30). I’m a Relief Society President. I do food runs for all kinds of people, regardless of their tithe-paying status. It’s a Bishop’s decision. He’s told me that Welfare should be for those who pay their tithes and attend church, but we don’t set that as the only standard when we administer welfare.
And besides that, who are you to judge how the Bishops decide who gets welfare? Their calling is to be a judge in Israel, and their decisions can and should be guided by the Holy Ghost. Maybe that doesn’t always happen- that’s part of the learning we all need here on earth. Until you HAVE been a Bishop and had to make those decisions, you will never know what the Holy Ghost will tell you. And you will know that you will never make perfect decisions. As a Relief Society President, I rely on my Bishop for his insight, and also the Holy Ghost for promptings on who to serve. I have found that if I am in doubt, I follow the motto, “Charity Never Faileth”. But someone else, another RS President, might not be at that maturity or level. One thing I’m really not seeing in this chain of comments is any real insight on the part of those critical to the Church on what that growth is all about. And they will never have it until after the practice of their faith. (Faith precedes the miracle).
To proxfm:
I guess the content of this argument I am reading is so annoying is because it is so absolutely trivial in comparison to the real work of the Lord in this world. profxm seems to have no understanding of the really deep meanings of faith, hope, charity, service, selflessness, stewardship, blessings, obedience, humility, joy, eternity, sacrifice, missionary, and Christian. Until proxfm gets out of his narrowly constrained, self-centered universe, and delves much more deeply in a very personal way with the foundations of true Christ-like love, he will never understand why how the Church manages the financial responsibilities it has is irrelevant to the servant to has been given all by his or her Lord, and recognizes, with immense gratitude the absolute necessity for personal obedience to the commandments of the Lord, including that of paying a full tithing. Believe me, it’s not really about the money that the Lord cares about. It is the broken heart and contrite spirit that the Lord seeks, and tithing, just like all other gifts we give to the Father, is just another ultimately valueless thing that He asks us to give up for a better thing- for Him. And if you think this is some blind-faith kind of thing, I can assure you that I have earned the right to state these things with no reservation, and with clear understanding of the alternate view- because I have been on the other side of understanding. And I was raised to be questioning.
I also have many friends of many faiths who are dedicated tithe payers- minimum of 10% at least, who understand tithing as a true principal and not a “money generating practice” of the church. To single out the Mormon church for their tithing practices is hypocritical. To think that tithing is all about getting to the next level of the celestial kingdom is naive and superficial.
I too was raised to be questioning. But I was raised to truthfully be seeking the truth. I don’t see that in your “analysis” or your defense of your judgment of “ethics” violations against the church. What I do see is a very self-centered person with some specific antagonism against the LDS Church in particular, and you are publishing misleading information and making moral judgments that simply you are not qualified to make. Next time, it would great if you could be more forthcoming about why you really feel a need to criticize. What purpose are you really trying to serve? What is your point?
Or are you just trying to get back at a religious organization that offended your sense of entitlement to act in a way it didn’t condone?
Do you realize that if you try to change the rules (the laws) that you seem to think the Church is exploiting unethically, you change the law for ALL churches? Does that really make sense? Think about it.
jens…
First, ad hominem attacks against me are a waste of time and a logical fallacy. I’m not sure why you feel the need to attack me, personally, but who I am and how “self-centered” I am is completely irrelevant to the point of the post. Your welcome to accuse me of all sorts of nonsense without ever having met me or without knowing anything about me if it makes you feel better about yourself. But, in no way does it change the arguments I made or the information I presented.
Second, if you had read my post carefully you would have realized that I do bemoan the fact that I didn’t visit the ranch while my aunt and uncle where there. We overlapped living in FL for about 6 months is all and I was starting a new job at that time. So, the timing didn’t work out. I wish I had visited them. Ergo, there’s no point criticizing me for something I have already said I wish I had done.
Third, one of your defenses of the ranch is basically a justification of possibly unethical behavior (which, in the comments, had you read those, I admitted was difficult to discern) by citing more unethical behavior. Basically you are saying, “LDS Inc. isn’t that bad if you compare it to Catholic Inc.” Let me see if I can make the flaw in this argument more apparent by replacing “land” with something else, like slaves: “Having one slave isn’t that bad if you compare it to having 100 slaves.” Um, well, actually, having 1 slave is still bad. So, trying to justify LDS Inc.’s bad behavior by citing worse behavior by Catholic Inc. is not going to convince anyone.
Fourth… You obviously have only read this one post on this cite. Had you looked at my other posts you would have seen that I am an equal-opportunity critic. I criticize Catholicism, Islam, Fundamentalist Christianity, Republicans, Democrats, America, Obama, etc. I criticize all those I think warrant criticism. I guess that makes me: anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, anti-Republican, anti-Democrat, anti-American, and anti-Obama as well, since apparently the criteria you have for someone being anti-Mormon is that they criticize Mormonism. I also occasionally criticize food I eat, water I drink, my own tendency to eat too much at times, my tendency to spend to much time on the internet, etc. Ergo, I’m also anti-food, anti-water, anti-myself, anti-myself on the internet, etc. That, of course, is ridiculous. By your criteria, you are anti-profxm. The horror! You should be ashamed of yourself!
Oh, and of course calling me an anti-Mormon is also an ad hominem, like much of your other comments. Ergo, it is a logical fallacy and really not much appreciated here. If you have an issue with me pointing out that the LDS Church has a for-profit farm that is massive and worth lots of money, explain what that issue is. But simply calling me names because I pointed it out does nothing to address the issue: LDS Inc. uses service missionaris on its for-profit properties to increase profit. That is arguably unethical, but a debatable issue.
Your last point is bizarre. Your basically saying that revealing their finances should only be done if all religions have to do so. Um, yeah, sure. Of course, some religions do this voluntarily because they don’t want to be criticized for this exact type of behavior. But I also have no problem with all religions being required to reveal this information. In fact, I’d love for that to be the case. Ergo, what’s your point?
Good to meet you, Jens. Since the brethren are asking me to finance their activities, I consider it my duty to make sure that the money is used in a responsible manner.
Of course, that would make a lot of sense. If religious organizations want a government subsidy by being tax exempt then every tax payer ought to know how that money is being used.
Given that this is true:
There is no law in this land that says that any church has to make their financial reporting totally transparent to the world.
How do you know that this is:
The profits go directly back into the Church funds for temple and meeting house construction, humanitarian aid, and a host of other church activities that directly benefit the members and the communities in which they live.
For Kuri,
It turns out that one does not have to have full public financial disclosure to be assured that profits go back into the Church funds as I stated. Turns out also that if you’re a member of the Church, you can work for the Church in the accounting department, and get insight into what happens. I have a friend that, those he doesn’t share details, has given me a general idea of where things go.
So, you might say that is not sufficient. But I beg to differ. An additional point of evidence is the character of my friend, the character of the leaders of the Church, and the character of the people operating the Church. The character of my friend is beyond question in my opinion. The character of the leaders of the Church are exemplary. If you doubt this, take a look at the lives they live, the talks they give, and everything about them. They’re human of course, but there is total consistency between what they preach and what they do and believe. As a member of the Church, I listen to them frequently, and have close family members who know some of them personally. True, it is a personal witness, but in the end, much of what profxm rages against is contingent on a personal witness. The error he makes is that he believes that open public disclosure of their books is the only route to “keeping them honest” and avoiding ethics violations. The truth is, they actually believe in God, and they know that they will stand at the bar of God and be judged. For a person of faith, that can be more compelling than civil law for compliance to ethics.
In addition to that, the LDS Church has been through sufficient legal trials in their history, that they will never knowingly violate laws for non-profits and how they are operated. The IRS has full legal authority to audit their operations and compliance to the law at any time, and if there were indications of impropriety, I am certain they would have been investigated by now. You have only to learn a little history about how the church has operated regarding the Church ranch (public records) to know that they will comply with the law. So how is there an ethics violation if they are compliant?
To profxm:
I kind of baited you a bit with that earlier post. Wanted to see if you could pick out the points. A key element you missed is something Matthew stated in an earlier post- you come from a perspective of an American, Protestant model of church operation. Your vision is limited. I suggested you understand a number of terms, including faith, commitment, and service. This wasn’t to impune your character. It was a comment about the need for common definitions when discussing a topic. As we likely have very different understandings of the many terms integral a discussion of ethics and Christian belief, there can be no real progress until all parties agree on the definitions. I continue to encourage you to come to an understanding, especially from an LDS perspective of those terms listed above. Your aunt and uncle should be able to help.
I also was waiting to hear how an ex-Mormon as yourself proclaim to be, could lack so much understanding of the gospel terms and how the church operates, such as how missionaries are called, and why they serve. Former members of the LDS church generally have their reasons why they left, but they generally know more than you apparently do. I guess I just generalized a little too much about you. I expected you to know more.
As to my “other churches” comments, I think you miss the point also. The local Lutheran church had a bake sale to raise money (for profit) to send kids to camp. Other local church has huge annual or regular events to send people on missions, to support the homeless, to do any number of what we consider Christian activities which we also consider to be good for the community and to save souls. I find it totally unnecessary for me to question their ethics in raising money in profit-making activities even if it is to pay for what might seem to some to be a cushy camp in a kind of resort surrounding. Not mine to judge.
So you might question the scale, but scale is irrelevant to the ethics question. It either is or is not ethical for a non-profit to engage in profit making activities for their legal uses to further their non-profit and ecclesiastical belief system.
So far you have accused the Church of ethics violations based on scale of operation and a lack of knowledge of the law. My point about other churches is that you SHOULD take this ethics question beyond a criticism of the LDS Church, and to a higher level- is ANY non-profit organization justified in engaging if for-profit activity without full and unadulterated disclosure of those activities to the entire world? I think many of the comments above speak to this. But I believe the insinuations that the Church “uses” people inappropriately and other unfounded accusations of impropriety when you absolutely do not understand the scope and terms of events or practices, should not be used to engage the discussion on ethics.
That’s a really long comment, so here’s a shorter jens:
You sillies! We have the bestest leaders in the whole world! They’re so good and nice, they’d never ever do anything bad, even by mistake! Don’t you know anything?!
kuri, excellent summary.
jens… I don’t really think you know what you’re talking about. It’s like you’re dismissing my arguments because I don’t agree with how you see the world, which is pretty much like saying, “You (profxm) must be wrong because you disagree with me and, of course, I’m right.” Um, that’s not an argument.
As far as knowing how missionaries are called and serve, I’m fairly clear on that. I was called and served my time – 2 full years. Why they serve… Well, there are a lot of reasons for that. I love the next ad hominem you introduce in the midst of this discussion: “Oh, and by the way, profxm, you’re an idiot.” Right. Thanks. Compelling argument!
The last part of your comment is mind-boggling. You’re the one who raised the issue of scale and said that the Catholic Church is worse than Mormonism, so Mormonism must not be that bad. I said scale was irrelevant. You are now saying, “scale is irrelevant.” Um, okay. Thanks for agreeing with me.
I’m also baffled by your assumption that a Lutheran Church was raising money “for profit” when the goal was to send kids to camp. How is that “for profit”? Profit implies it went into someone’s pocket for personal use. Ergo, if the Lutheran Church had a bake sale and gave all the proceeds to the local pastor for his retirement account, that would have been “for profit.” To send kids to a summer Bible camp seems like a non-profit motive.
I never said the scale of the ranch was the ethical problem. I just think the scale is amazing. Whether or not the ranch is 1 meter square or .7% of the state of Florida is irrelevant. Is it a for-profit ranch owned by a church? If so, then I wonder why a church needs that? And why is it right to have people volunteer for a for-profit company?
FYI, there has recently been a hubbub about unpaid internships not being legal (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html). Basically this is when a for-profit corporation allows people to “intern” for them without paying them (with some added criteria). I fail to see how the situation with my aunt and uncle is all that different – they were volunteering for a for-profit company. Yeah, they knew they were, but at some fundamental level that seems wrong to me.
Whenever you’re ready to actually take issue with this argument in a coherent way, feel free to let me know.
[...] largest ranch land owner in Wyoming, is the second largest land owner in Nebraska, has the largest cattle ranch in 48 states (adjacent to Disneyworld in Florida), and is the largest foreign landowner in the [...]
When a person is “called to serve” they really volunteer but are given an assignment by the church. There are people who are provided for by the bishops storehouse without paying tithing but it is according to the discression of the bishop (leader of the congregation). I have seen it both ways. Remember, all leaders of this church are also volunteers although the church provides many paying jobs like the full time ranchers at this property.The church generally does not turn away the needy and will often assist them in other ways if they won’t financially. On another note, the ranch better make some profit or it will not be able to pay taxes. As far as disclosure, you might want to visit lds.org and read what our church is doing and is about. Maybe you should call the church office in Salt Lake City and see who they would have you speak with to get your questions answered. Although the ranch is for profit, when a missionary serves there they are serving the church, which is non-profit. I served a mission in the same manner and was very glad to do so. I plan to do it again.
Best Regards
Also see deseretranchflorida.com for the history and function of the ranch.
Good Day!
Can you explain how that works from a legal standpoint? Does the (for-profit) ranch calculate the value of your labor and then transfer the amount to the (non-profit) church as a donation?