The following came over my email transom some months ago. It is basically an email trying to recruit senior couples to manage LDS farms in South America. names and IRL identifiers have been removed.

This is an extension of the thread Farm Management Corp
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,135919

Note that the email mentions farms in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The Brazil farm was 60000+ acres, which is about 100 square miles. Even for a corporate farm, this is a substantial undertaking.

And now you know why I call it LDS Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------

“Dear WWW, We have talked previously about the Church's Agricultural Investment Farms in South America. These large, productive, corporate farms are NOT Welfare farms, but rather part of the Church's large diversified investment portfolio. The farms are large, efficient, "for-profit" commercial operations that are subject to the same taxes and legal restrictions as any other in-country business. As such it is neither legal nor practical to require Church membership of it numerous employees. A large majority of these employees worked on the farms before they were acquired by the Church. Many had never even heard the word "Mormon" before the farms became "Church farms."

“While it is not necessary to be a member to work on the farms, it is still incumbent upon all employees to appropriately represent their Church owner. Basic standards of honesty, integrity, morality, hard work, provident living, family values, and education are essential to help employees progress and to protect the reputation of the Owner.

“Not too long ago a new "Agricultural Church Service Mission" was created to serve these farm employees. Under the direction of the Presiding Bishop, missionary couples with agricultural background (able to walk the walk and talk the talk) may be called to perform special volunteer service missions working with the employees of our Church-owned International Investment Farms. Specifically, there is need of mature [in the gospel], Portuguese and Spanish-speaking couples , with agricultural background to live on and work with Church Investment Farm employees in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile).

“This mission offers a unique opportunity to work directly with employees in a non-threatening environment and to lift and bless the lives of Church farm and ranch employee's and their families for generations to come. Missionary couples would also support the small little Branches of the Church that have sprung up as a result of the Church's investment presence. Normally mission calls will be for 23 months and missionaries would live in guest-quarters on the assigned farm. There is special need for at least one couple for the 60,000+ acre [farm name] (corn, soybean & feijão) near Brasilia in Minas Gerais.

Actual agronomic or animal science expertise is not needed, but rather missionaries that can relate to rural folks and rural ways. They need to enjoy the "campo" and humble folks.

[We] tried to get long-term visas for Brazil for over three months and separate applications. Seems there is some problem with the Los Angeles office of the Brazilian Consulate. Finally in early October it was decided to send us to the ranch in Argentina and to have us work out of that location. We have been here two weeks and are just getting our "sea legs". We do have a Brazilian Tourist Visa that will permit short-term visits to Brazil over the next 5 years.

Also in 3 of weeks we will have a missionary couple from [Morridor] who will come here to Argentina where we will then get them long-term visas to Brazil from here. We hope to have them in place by year-end. The BBBs served a previous mission on the [farm name] and were prompted to volunteer again. They are a super couple and love the little branch in VVVV. [IRL info redacted] The idea is to have "seamless" missionaries with each of the small rural Branches of the Church until they are strong enough to be self-sufficient (10-15 yrs.).

Another opportunity: At the same time we are looking for exceptional, native, returned missionaries, with rural roots that would be interested in the opportunity to study agricultural under our tutelage while serving internships on the Church farms (possibly even in the US) with an eye to developing future Farm Managers for our South American properties. If there are suggestions for names and contact information for such young men, I would appreciate contact as well. We have been given approval for one such "Management Trainee" each year if we can locate truly exceptional candidates. We are working with CCC to prepare him to enter BYU-I under this program. We could start another such Brazilian next Fall if we find the right one.

I appreciate you help in getting the word out. We would like to keep these positions staffed over a number of years and slowly and consistently strengthening the quality of our workforce, while at the same time blessing the lives of our employees.

XXX

Interested couples should inquire with either:

YYY, Mission Director
Farmland Reserve, Inc.
139 East South Temple, Suite 600
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111
[phone, email redacted]

Oh. My. God. Did I read that right? "We freely admit these are for-profit operations, and we want you to VOLUNTEER to work there!?!?"

Do you really think they don't mind if the employees are not church members? Maybe they simply don't pay 'em enough to be good tithe payers...

Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, why doesn't Ford or IBM do that with special volunteer couples who relate to "folks" who are mechanics or computer geeks?

Hell, they can volunteer to come work for me.

Do you suppose anyone besides me thinks their intentions are transparent, much?

BoJ: I know a couple who was sent to Hawaii. He is a retired accountant. I then see that a giant hotel is underway, and they are basically advertising for someone with corporate accounting experience. His wife mainly socialized while on the "mission." She was untrained and inexperienced in this area, so I guess she was just along for the ride. They took her 'cuz they needed him. They had one of those long 2-year missions, and SLC extended it because they were so "dedicated." I think they actually ended up serving two "missions." Lots of retired couples do that.

TSCC wants "seamless" transitions (referenced in email above), because corporations lose $$ when employee turnover is high. Honestly, I don't understand why TSCC gets away with this. Remember when there were no senior missionaries a long while back, and then there was this big PUSH to recruit, and rhetoric about "obligations" and "blessings" yada yada? That was the same time period that TSCC was transitioning into a big-time for-profit corp.

Of course I don't mind for-profit corps. at all. I just mind it when they masquerade as something else and get tax advantages which makes the playing field tilted.

I have for a while now, started to look @ all of the abuse, hypocracy, outright fraud and crimes of organized religion as a whole.
If I understand correctly, these huge for-profit organizations require volunteer help? No taxes, no wages=100% profit! They probably have the food/vet services donated as well.
I have one observation and would love to get some feedback:
I have shopped at DI for years. Right around the time of construction on the MEGA MALL in downtown SLC, I noticed that DI'S prices doubled. Is that my imagination? A coincidence? Does anyone know for sure?

The "relationship visualizer" on this page:

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

can be viewed full-screen, and you can click on any box or name within it. Try Jeffrey R. Holland, for example.

The visual representation brings home the fact that there is really no distance between the non-profit LDS and the for-profit ventures.

What do I click on to see the GA's associated with Agreserves? I didn't see a link called "relationship visualizer" and a few random clicks didn't turn up anything useful.

They are looking for young MEN to serve internships to learn the trade:

"At the same time we are looking for exceptional, native, returned missionaries, with rural roots that would be interested in the opportunity to study agricultural under our tutelage while serving internships on the Church farms (possibly even in the US) with an eye to developing future Farm Managers for our South American properties. If there are suggestions for names and contact information for such young men, I would appreciate contact as well. We have been given approval for one such "Management Trainee" each year if we can locate truly exceptional candidates. We are working with CCC to prepare him to enter BYU-I under this program. We could start another such Brazilian next Fall if we find the right one."

No young women need apply.

I'm guessing that means farm work...

Reminds me of my gullible TBM fool of a dad. Employed by TSCC for many years. Finally retires and then he and mother end up doing a two year mission basically doing exactly the same thing he was getting paid for a year earlier, and dipping into his savings to do this. How dumb can you get?

Their farm work force. Then they can insist the farm workers pay 10% back to the morg. As it is now, they can't hire members and they can't insist the nonmembers pay tithing. That must really frost the bigwigs.

Sherlock: I've heard that senior missions are more costly than those for 19-year-olds. Have you found that to be the case? These would be personal funds that otherwise would be used for retirement, correct?

Also, just to put this into perspective...think about how much good could be done in the world if this kind of labor force was ACTUALLY giving humanitarian service for 2 or more years, instead of improving a mega-corp's bottom line.

Why don't people who are otherwise intelligent and have lived long with successful careers see through this scam? Please explain that to me.

Unindoctrinated Wrote:

> Why don't people who are otherwise intelligent and
> have lived long with successful careers see
> through this scam? Please explain that to me.

Because they are doing it for GOD! Maybe they see it as earning them brownie points toward the CK?

I wonder how much they're paying the "native" folks to harvest the fields.

In all seriousness, when I hear about this sort of stuff my brain almost shuts down - it's really hard for me to believe that on top of everything else that led me out of the crutch, that it really all boils down to a gigantic corporation cheating its way around taxes, payroll and everything else that a legitimate, ethical business would take care of. Surely a church with "Jesus Christ" in its name wouldn't be using its tax-exempt status to cheat its way over the competition. I almost want to say "prove it!" because a copy-and-pasted email can easily be forged.

But that's the beauty of this kind of stuff. It's difficult to prove. That's the way they like it - it's easily denied. If you try to press the issue, you're just a bitter anti-mormon. It's so goddamned frustrating.

After more than 8 years as an exmo, this sort of stuff just makes me want to plug my ears, bury my head in the sand and cry.

I hate living in yewtah.

It came from a church source, and had names and phone numbers of who to contact if you were interested in applying for the job. To tell the truth, I'd be tickled to go live in Brazil for a couple years, but not as a crypto-no-Mo.

I'd rather not say exactly how I came by it because I don't want to lose my source. I will swear on Steve Benson's notebook that I am 100% certain of its accuracy.

Jim Huston has pointed out a number of times about how LDS Inc's for-profit businesses are taxed. I am confident that is the case. However, just as GE can tap dance through the tax code with enough adeptness that it ends up owing no taxes, I'm sure LDS Inc has a herd of tax lawyers and accountants who do the same tap dance to minimize their tax liability.

Another poster some years ago gave an excellent example of how they might do that. IIRC, in the US churches can earn rental income on property they own and treat that as tax-exempt. Money earned through selling a product or service, OTOH, is taxed as regular business income. So, what the church could do is lease the land for the Deseret Ranch in FL to another church owned business that did the actual ranching. The ranch business makes no money because the profits are all eaten up by the lease payments. The lease income is tax free.

I'm not a CPA or anything even in the ballpark, so I don't know if that can actually be done to protect income from taxation, but I am confident they can do things to protect income.

Between the email I saw about large ranches in Argentina and Brazil, I have heard here on RFM and from some RFMers in person of similar multi-tens-of-thousands of acres ranches in Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Alberta, UT, ID, WY, NB, and FL. I'd be astonished if that were the complete list.

The grandaddy, to my knowledge, is still the Deserret Ranch in FL, bought back in the late 1950s. About 300,000 acres, which is about the size of the entire Salt Lake Valley from Magna to Draper and the UofU to Herriman - a very big piece of real estate.

I do know that LDS Inc had begun slicing land off the Desert Ranch that abutted Orlando, and developing it as high priced housing developments. I think they may have been assuming that that would provide them multiple billions in profits, until the Florida housing market collapsed, which put a severe and unanticipated crimp in their cash flow. The fallout is that they now pinch pennies to the point of absurdity.

Although, they did find a couple million to buy an auto salvage business that they didn't want blighting the view of the "historic site" they plan to develop on the Susquehanna where John the Baptist "appeared" (wink wink) to dunk JS and OC.

Thank you for a thoughtful and informative reply. Please understand of course I wasn't literally meaning "prove it" in a manner questioning your sincerity.. more metaphorical (that's the only word I can think of) in that it's so hard for me to hear about this kind of stuff that I want to just pretend it isn't true.

Despite being ex-mo it just makes me wilt to think that an organization I was taught to give my life for if necessary was all a shell game, even more than I knew before. Piddly little amounts for charity, and usually that comes with strings attached. It's appalling.

I am grateful for your effort in showing the dark side of the church, and enjoy learning about it - I just hate that Farmland Reserve or Deseret ranch even exist.

They are in Nebraska too, second only to Ted Turner. Here are some old articles.

http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/article_5de7826d-51cb-5b5a-a166-d2b3d38fd1cc.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,595096557,00.html

I think that what they mean by promising the senior missionaries a "non-threatening environment" is:
1. No, it's not in a slum.
2. No, the people you are harassing cannot run away from, nor can they even question you. They are captive workers.

It's a feudal system.

The condescending reference to the "humble" people is highly irritating.

The Brazilian Consulate in LA probably gave the church propagandists trouble over the visas because they recognized LD$ Inc. as having questionable ethics, and questionable goals.

I am shocked and confused. Do other churches do things like this? Or is it just the one true church?

Because it's a "FOR PROPHET" project.

He he he thanks for lightening the mood for a moment

"relate to rural folks and rural ways. They need to enjoy the "campo" and humble folks."


And I agree with Once More. I smell a feudal system.

My father ran a church farm. It was NOT a welfare farm. All of the product was sold to a large corporation for profit.

They shut the farm down and leased it out when my father retired, because it was no longer profitable.

Church members were assigned to work there every weekend for free. They put in thousands of hours of free labor. A lot of it was free child labor no less.

There were some paid employees. ALL of them were mormons. The top dog, his assistant and a secretary were all paid. During harvest they paid teenagers minimum wage to work on the machinery.

The processing plant was 100% volunteer church labor unpaid.

When the church bought the farm they got rid of all the migrant workers and never hired them back on. They no longer needed them with all the free labor.

When my parents retired, they went to work for the church for free. They did that until they were too old to function. It was years of free labor for the church. My parents basically lived on the road in their own travel trailer. They spent a lot of money working for free.

Your desperate need for self-validation will be matched with a job that doesn't pay. In fact, you will pay to be employed. In return for your payments, you be allowed to meet with the "campos," or locals. You may whip them if you please. In any case, they must be separated from beer and firecrackers. They will gamble foolishly, if allowed to. As a white person, your job is to manage the Lamanites and their kin.

http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org/GB/recipient/GB641044/agreserves-ltd/

They enjoy lovely subsidy benefits from the EU et al.

Briggy