I was at lunch with a person from my office who said one of his relatives was recently hired by the Church- in its Farm Management Corporation. His job is to travel the world looking to buy commercial farms and agricultural property. He is currently in Peru buying olive farms.

I guess I'm naive- I thought that the church's farming and ranching operations were for humanitarian and welfare needs, not to make a profit. When I said this the person laughed and said the church is the largest cattle ranching entity in the nation and one of the biggest beef providers to McDonalds.

He also pointed out that the church's non-profit status lets it get past most state laws regarding corporate farming and ranching. So they can buy up properties left and right, without the red tape of a for-profit business.

It appears to be a big money laundering operation to me- where does this revenue go? Certainly does not benefit the members..

Do any of the products made by companies which are owned by LDs Inc, show up as recommended strongly by church leadership, or are any required for LDS members?

ie: for food storage, are ward groups pushing the dehydrated potato pearls on members, and then these particular potato pearls are made by an LDS company, or from potatoes grown on church-owned farms?

ie: garments/temple clothing required for the faithful, is it made by or sold by LDS businesses, and is its cotton content from church-owned farms?

ie: jello, is it mostly made in part with bovine bones from LDS ranch/farm operations?

As long as you have a church where $profit$ = approval by God, these kinds of church business will be promoted.

This is one of the items that drove me from LDS Inc. in the first place. Hardly Christ-like endeavors!

Hit the wrong key. I would like to know if the church farming operations receive government farm subsidies. I tried looking this up and haven't had any luck so far. If anyone has the information or knows where to look I would appreciate it.

Agreserves, Ltd. is the LDS Church's agricultural arm in the United Kingdom. They receive farm subsidies from the European Union. Details here:
http://farmsubsidy.org/GB/recipient/GB641044/agreserves-ltd/

Agricultural enterprises owned by the LDS church:

Agreserves Australia LTD: Kooba Station,Australia; Deseret Ranches of Alberta: Raymond, AB, Canada; AgroReservas, S.C.: Los Mochis, Mexico; Deseret Farms of CA: Woodland, CA; Deseret Farms of CA: Modesto,CA; Deseret Farms of CA: Chico,CA; South Valley Farms: Bakersfield, CA; Deseret Security Farms: Blythe, CA; Naples Farms: Naples,FL; Deseret Cattle & Citrus ST: Cloud, FL; Deseret Farms of Ruskin: Ruskin, FL; Kewela Plantation: O'ahu, HI; Rex Ranch: Ashby, NE; Riverbend Farms: St.Paul, OR; Deseret Land & Livestock: Woodruff, UT; Wasatch-Dixie Farms: Elberta, UT; Agreserves: Cottle County,TX; Agrinorthwest: Kennewick,WA; Handcart Ranch: Alcova, WY; Deseret Ranches of Wyoming: Cody,WY.

A quite rich three percent of the population in Brazil owns 2/3 of the arable land.

In 2005, the leaders of a movement to give ownership of land to workers took over some property owned by AgroReservas do Brazil, a 70,000 hectare farm run by Farm Management Company, also known as AgReserves Inc. This company is based in Salt Lake City.

"We have felt that good farms, over a period, represent a sage investment while at the same time they are available as an agricultural resource to feed people should there come a time of need." - Gordon B. Hinckley

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2005/10/05BRASILIA2692.html
The link is to a publication of a cable.

This is what gets me. the church owns so much good land in Brazil that I'm sure is worth a whole lot of $'s. Yet they they tell all the young people to go get educated and pay lots of tithing and get professional jobs. They may use the perpetual education fund. Wouldn't a better solution be to use this capital to improve the economic status of people. They could create factories and industry and warehouses and actually employ the poor Indians? give them healthcare coverage and retirements.

Why is the mormon church hording all the wealth?

OnceMore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> "We have felt that good farms, over a period,
> represent a sage investment while at the same time
> they are available as an agricultural resource to
> feed people should there come a time of need." -
> Gordon B. Hinckley.

Laughable.

When the time of need came the church publicly announced it was not taking care of members leaving many that paid a lifetime of tithing in deep economic distress.

The farm in Chico is Berberrian Nut Farm.

Senior missionaries receive mission calls and pay their way to work there for frrreeeee while the church makes money.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2015 03:34PM by cynthia.

OnceMore Wrote: Fascinating
-------------------------------------------------------
> Agricultural enterprises owned by the LDS church:
>
> Agreserves Australia LTD: Kooba Station,Australia;
> Deseret Ranches of Alberta: Raymond, AB, Canada;
> AgroReservas, S.C.: Los Mochis, Mexico; Deseret
> Farms of CA: Woodland, CA; Deseret Farms of CA:
> Modesto,CA; Deseret Farms of CA: Chico,CA; South
> Valley Farms: Bakersfield, CA; Deseret Security
> Farms: Blythe, CA; Naples Farms: Naples,FL;
> Deseret Cattle & Citrus ST: Cloud, FL; Deseret
> Farms of Ruskin: Ruskin, FL; Kewela Plantation:
> O'ahu, HI; Rex Ranch: Ashby, NE; Riverbend Farms:
> St.Paul, OR; Deseret Land & Livestock: Woodruff,
> UT; Wasatch-Dixie Farms: Elberta, UT; Agreserves:
> Cottle County,TX; Agrinorthwest: Kennewick,WA;
> Handcart Ranch: Alcova, WY; Deseret Ranches of
> Wyoming: Cody,WY.

For AgReserves, take a look at the the relationships visualizer:

http://www.corporationwiki.com/Utah/Salt-Lake-City/agreserves-inc-4175537.aspx

And also:

Why are so many of the various Deseret Industries recently reincorporated, in 2009? I get the seperate entities thing, but did it just happen, where before the web was much more...webby?

mormon church=the great and abominable corporation

Were these chartered or reincorporated in Florida and Delaware, because of lenient and advantageous bankruptcy law (FL) and/or tax structures (Delaware)?

I have lots of info on this, but it's at home right now and I'm not. Did you know that senior missionaries are free labor for these corporations? They actually "advertise" for, say, attorneys with water law experience. (The did exactly that.)These missions are supposed to be "service" missions. HA! Did you know that GA's sit on these boards? (not for free!) These are easy to Google. This is an ugly business, which TSCC does not want IRS or government to interfere with by rescinding their non-profit.

There is no conceivable way that tithing funds were not the seed money for these ventures. At this point in time, with so many cutbacks in janitorial, missionary expenses, ward budgets, etc., and estimating how much tithing is deposited into local accounts and go to 0.00 every Monday morning (all to SLC), I want to know where the surplus is going now.

I got physically ill when I read the article "How the Mormons Make Money" http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money Be sure to read all seven pages to really get the full information that could be obtained.

They have "for profit" businesses all over the place. They just started making profit on things like their nature reserves for hunters, Wood and cattle is just part.

They probably "donate" a portion of some of their beef / crops to the Bishop's storehouses (DI) but this is probably just for tax write-offs. Since these businesses are for profit, they do have to file all of the tax info just as any other business would; but they get to "donate" their profits to LDS corp so no taxes are probably paid.

The sad part is that the corporation donates less than 1% (0.7%) to charity; while other churches donate approx. 25% of their income.

Show this to almost TBM, and they will simply say: "See, the Lord instructs us to be self-sufficient; we're taking care of ourselves!"

You then ask them: "Why do you have to pay tithing, then?"

"The Lord instructs us..."

How do they explain the massive failures of most early LDS run and funded businesses? Do they explain it, or is that something you only find out when you look at non-Church sources, old newspapers and archived legal cases?

How do they explain why and how the faithful no longer have access to the once-open account books of all LDS-owned and run corporations? They had it, and it was taken away from them, coincidentally at a point in time (was it the 1960s?) when they had experienced many more failures than usual, reported declining income from once-strong investments, and had demonstrably used very poor judgment with respect to funding old, or considering new, investments.

I guess they couldn't ACTUALLY answer the faithful who I thought out leaders were inspired! WHAT HAPPENED!

The near bankruptcy of the LDS church in the late 1890s was nothing compared to that, in terms of dollar amount, if I remember rightly. Do they consider that in nearly every place Mormons set up they were run out of town on a rail, not coincidentally at the very same time they ran off with other people's (and their own people's) property or funds? Does the prior history of their own church, escape them completely?

The poor investments, the selling off of major assets, the falling away of faithful tithers as a result...which sounds a lot like right now. Does the wash-rinse-repeat cycle of this church make any sense to them or sound familiar to them, at all?

Do the faithful ever consider those things? Do they simply not know of them? Is the mantra they repeat now, "The Lord instructs us not pay attention to things, especially financial things, which make us ask questions or doubt church leaders"?

They must an army of lawyers to keep them *just* this side of legality.

Or they have enough lawmakers in their pocket to keep them from getting slammed.

This topic really stretches my memory. In the late 1950ies, the members in L.A. area were assigned to go to a "Pear Blossom" church-owned farm an hour, plus, North of them, to pick fruit (mostly peaches).

The good part: You could eat as many as you wanted while picking, and buy a box of "2nds" (not-good-enough for sending to the cannery in L.A. area, near a D.I. store).

It was fun, sociable work (except for that EARLY hour to get there, and the gas it took).

A couple worked the farm all year, and depended on the free help at "thinning" and harvest time.

I rented land belonging to the church operating as "THE PRESIDENT OF THE LETHBRIDGE STAKE" for 6 years (1984-1980). The church wanted their rent (1/3 of the wheat) delivered to their own grain elevator in Magrath, AB. That was in direct contravention of the law at that time. All wheat had to be sold through the Canadian Wheat Board. I was breaking the law by hauling it to them instead of selling it through the CWB and they were breaking the law by receiving and storing the wheat. I could have gone to jail had I been caught and Deseret Farms of Alberta would have fought it tooth and nail of course and paid a fine. After that first year I told them I couldn't do business like that and risk my freedom and livelihood. They agreed to allow me to farm it as I pleased and market the grain according to the law.

RB