Church purchasing land in Nebraska

[smac97]

Who’s Buying Nebraska? After shopping spree, Mormon church is top land purchaser

Quote

Early in the summer of 2018, a nonprofit few Nebraskans have heard of bought a 22,613-acre chunk of land in Garden County.

The next year, the nonprofit, tied to a P.O. Box in Salt Lake City, picked up another 3,331 acres of county land, buying it from a Colorado investment company.

The unknown nonprofit grabbed two more pieces of county land on the same day in March 2020, adding 10,278 acres to its mushrooming total. Then, two years later, it added still more land in this rural Nebraska county tucked between Chimney Rock and Lake McConaughy.
...

Farmland Reserve Inc., a nonprofit owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, has been quietly buying up ranch land in Nebraska’s Sandhills for the past three decades.

The Garden County shopping spree, coupled with more buys in four neighboring counties, made the church Nebraska’s top single buyer of land in the past five years. 

The church bought a whopping 57,500 acres – double the amount of the second largest buyer– between 2018 and 2022, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of data gathered by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications data journalism class.

The Mormon Church now owns about 370,000 total acres of zoned agricultural land in Nebraska. It could soon become Nebraska’s largest landowner – passing Ted Turner, who has famously long occupied that No. 1 spot – if church representatives continue to buy land at their current pace.

Wow.  370,000 acres is about 578 square miles (for comparison, Davis County, Utah is 634 square miles).

Quote

The church sees its land buys as a force for good, an investment in agriculture “to generate long-term value to support the Church’s religious, charitable, and humanitarian good works,” said a Farmland Reserve spokesman. 

The nonprofit owned by the church also pays property taxes like any other ag producer in the state, and state and federal income taxes, too, the spokesman noted – though an unknown amount of revenue is given to the church itself, which doesn’t have to pay taxes on passive investments. 

The Nebraska Farmers Union sees the church as another out-of-state corporation that arrives, drives up prices and makes buying harder for smaller farmers.

“All of the land that the Mormon church owns is land that individuals in Nebraska do not have the opportunity to own,” said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.

This is a reasonable complaint.

Quote

Farmland Reserve Inc. confirmed that it is currently ranching on about 365,000 acres in the Sandhills. The church doesn’t plan to continue expanding its ranching operation, the spokesman said, but it may buy row crop land to lease to local farmers.

Perhaps this is as much of a "win-win" as can be hoped for.

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The Nebraska land is just one slice of the 1.7 million acres of American real estate the Mormon church is now estimated to own.

I wonder if this estimate is correct.  That would be about 2,656 square miles, a bit larger than the State of Delaware.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

31 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Who’s Buying Nebraska? After shopping spree, Mormon church is top land purchaser

Wow.  370,000 acres is about 578 square miles (for comparison, Davis County, Utah is 634 square miles).

This is a reasonable complaint.

Perhaps this is as much of a "win-win" as can be hoped for.

I wonder if this estimate is correct.  That would be about 2,656 square miles, a bit larger than the State of Delaware.

Thanks,

-Smac

https://wyomingtruth.org/mormonland-examining-the-lds-churchs-wyoming-real-estate-part-1/#:~:text=With those caveats%2C their findings,which are in Sheridan County.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/04/05/new-database-gives-widest/

https://www.postregister.com/farmandranch/crops/miscellaneous/new-database-shows-lds-church-is-nations-fifth-largest-private-landowner/article_0a821ace-b331-5978-93b0-55658672784b.html

 

[blackstrap]

Bill Gates and the church must have the same   advisers.

Bill Gates Farmland: Why Is the Billionaire Buying So Much? (popularmechanics.com)

[LoudmouthMormon]

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The church sees its land buys as a force for good, an investment in agriculture “to generate long-term value to support the Church’s religious, charitable, and humanitarian good works,”

 

[Analytics]

23 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 

The story is about the Church increasing the size of its business empire by purchasing for-profit farms and ranches in Nebraska. Personally I don't care whether the corn syrup in my Coke comes from corn grown by the Church or corn grown by any other mega corporation. But the Church allocating some of its capital to increase the size of its business footprint in Nebraska shouldn't be conflated with feeding the poor and the hungry. Likewise, this story has no bearing on whether or not the Church is achieving a defensible balance between investing for the future and providing charitable and humanitarian works now.

[Analytics]

34 minutes ago, blackstrap said:

Bill Gates and the church must have the same   advisers.

Bill Gates Farmland: Why Is the Billionaire Buying So Much? (popularmechanics.com)

No, the Church has much better advisors because they've figured out how to do this without paying taxes on the profits.

[blackstrap]

23 minutes ago, Analytics said:

without paying taxes on the profit

So you think Bill G does not arrange his finances so that he pays only the amount of tax that is legally required ? Corporations have tax laws that a regular joe can't take advantage of.

[MustardSeed]

If the church farms, I hope they do so responsibly without old fashioned fertilizer, subsidized by the government and rototilling. 

[LoudmouthMormon]

44 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The story is about the Church increasing the size of its business empire by purchasing for-profit farms and ranches in Nebraska.

No it isn't.  The story is about the Church deciding to invest in for-profit farms and ranches in Nebraska.  It didn't increase its size, it made a decision on where to invest some of its existing size.  Its size would remain roughly the same whether it owned farms, another downtown mall, or, as I suspect some unthinkingly assume, a big room full of gold into which the first presidency regularly dives and swims around.

You get the distinction, right?

You may not figure it's an important distinction, but I do see a difference in the kinds of assets being owned.  Productive agricultural land feeds humans, whether done through corn or some other medium.  Conflating food production with obese America's unhealthy diet problems is your choice.  

Quote

But the Church allocating some of its capital to increase the size of its business footprint in Nebraska shouldn't be conflated with feeding the poor and the hungry.

The decision to assume the church is lying when it explicitly states it made the purchase “to generate long-term value to support the Church’s religious, charitable, and humanitarian good works,” is also your choice.   

I guess it's nice to see you didn't sweat a single drop when deciding which button to push.  I figure you're in good company - an awful lot of America are utterly clueless about the realities of feeding 9 billion people on earth.  I'm numbering myself among them, although I suspect I might have read slightly more about it than you, what with your comment about corn syrup and Coke.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

In a world such as this, many “sadly” think the Church is only trying to build a massive corporation, to yield countless other billions, with every move, it is for many reasons. However, what they attempting to do, is to ensure that every Ward building, Temple, storehouse is paid for completely, before even the plans are drawn. Because they believe fully in the doctrine handed down through the ages, they are seeking to feed those in need, which is a tenant of our Faith, and a teaching from the Lord Jesus Christ. In Zion, there are no poor, no hungry, to list only two very important things. In addition, The Church, believes entirely of the building of the New Zion. In fact, I have know many of my friends who have been sent to “Adam-ondi-Ahman”, to restore the land, for the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Restoration of the land. Doing this for building of the New Zion, and make way for the “Lost Tribes” to rebuild it. The Church has been purchasing millions, a millions acres of land, in and around, meaning land in surrounding States, all around this main location. Sometimes even using shell-companies, in and effort to have others even allow such purchases. 

What many fail to notice, is the Church pays out Billions each year, with building maintenance, heating bills, electricity bills, landscaping bills. etc. Most typical Wards, pay out many thousands each month, 20-50,000 per year in food, car payments, house payments, etc., for those in need, which equals Billions more. They also built a new family history center with specifications that cost Millions more, in an effort to keep it from being destroyed. It was build not too very far from “Adam-ondi-Ahman”, because they are believers. Much of this land will probably be turned into farmland, no cattle ranch expansion, as it is some of the greatest farmland on our planet. The Church now has (I think) three Temple’s in MO, one is very new, barely dedicated, if my information is correct. The wealth the Church has, is not to line the pockets of others, it is, and is being used to purchase the land, to build the infrastructure, for the New Zion (that alone is tens of buildings, and the Temples announced more tens of billions, and New Zion itself, hundreds of billions. In short, let us pray we have enough when the time comes, this is way we save, and thankfully we have leaders who can see beyond today, who understand that the money we have, is working for use to carry out our divine calling. 
 

Make no mistake, the time of the second coming is near, and time is a wasting. I don’t believe I will live to see, but I am certain those younger and healthier than I, The Lord Jesus Christ, he is coming! 

[The Nehor]

If they were buying up family farms I would look at this askance but one big agricultural corporation is probably as good as any other and whether the Church owns it probably doesn’t matter much at all in regards to what happens with the land.

If the Church buying up land suddenly makes people concerned that maybe this level of land ownership by any organization might be unhealthy then good I guess but they really haven’t been paying attention if this is what sparks that realization.

[LoudmouthMormon]

34 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

If they were buying up family farms I would look at this askance but one big agricultural corporation is probably as good as any other

So, can we count on your no vote to the notion that the church should go into rental properties?

[The Nehor]

16 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

So, can we count on your no vote to the notion that the church should go into rental properties?

I am generally in favor of eating landlords.

[LoudmouthMormon]

True story: I was once a landlord in the '90's.  I couldn't handle the level of disinterest in the human condition required to be a good one.  Scrooge was right.  People really do choose to do sentimental things like buy presents at Christmastime instead of pay the rent.  I found that indeed, "I can't afford to make idle people merry", so it was basically a losing proposition for me. 

Being a finance clerk is the mirror image of being a landlord.  I just got an urgent call from my bishop who is out of town: Some poor soul is one check away from getting his car repairs paid, so he can have his car back.  I'll gladly head into church mid-week to write out a check, drive around to get a counselor to sign it, and I'll even hand deliver the check wherever it needs to go.   The effort going into this stuff is so much better, much more sacred, much more holy, than the effort to get eviction proceedings going the day before Thanksgiving.

[longview]

39 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I am generally in favor of eating landlords.

Only a totalitarian would say this. Witness what happened in early 20th century: The kulaks in Russia were rich farmers. They were well to do peasants who owned their own land and were considered to be the landlords of rural Russia. They owned large farms, headed several cattles and horses, and were financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land. They were subjected to wide-spread severe famine artificially imposed by Bolshevics.

[The Nehor]

9 minutes ago, longview said:

Only a totalitarian would say this. Witness what happened in early 20th century: The kulaks in Russia were rich farmers. They were well to do peasants who owned their own land and were considered to be the landlords of rural Russia. They owned large farms, headed several cattles and horses, and were financially capable of employing hired labour and leasing land. They were subjected to wide-spread severe famine artificially imposed by Bolshevics.

I have no idea what this has to do with eating landlords but if you are worried about it I will amend my statement to say we should eat the Bolhshevics too. I hear they are a bit gamey but I bet they’d be good for sausage.

[Calm]

Quote

 

They were subjected to wide-spread severe famine artificially imposed by Bolshevics.

•  

If they had just been eaten while they were fat, no need for all that suffering due to starvation 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Calm

[longview]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I have no idea what this has to do with eating landlords but if you are worried about it I will amend my statement to say we should eat the Bolhshevics too. I hear they are a bit gamey but I bet they’d be good for sausage.

5 hours ago, Calm said:

If they had just been eaten while they were fat, no need for all that suffering due to starvation 

Both above statements very incoherent. Holodomor actually did happen. Millions of Ukrainians died needlessly due to the brutality of oppressive totalitarian regime.

[LoudmouthMormon]

A little help for @longview.  From one Coloradan to another.

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by LoudmouthMormon

[Kenngo1969]

If this trend continues, eventually, the two largest landowners in the United States will be:

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and
• The Chinese Communist Party.

[The Nehor]

28 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

If this trend continues, eventually, the two largest landowners in the United States will be:

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and
• The Chinese Communist Party.

The CCP can’t own US land. Their citizens and other legal entities can. Chinese interests own less than 1% of the land in the United States owned by foreigners. If you want to rate which nation’s citizens and legal entities own the greatest percent of US land out of all land owned by foreign interests then Canada wins at 31%. The nations trailing right behind Canada are the Netherlands, Italy, the U.K, and Germany.

The hysteria over China owing a ton of US land is manufactured nonsense. The same is true over the hysteria of China owning a large portion of the US National debt. It is propaganda designed to spread fear.

The Church is believed to be the second biggest landowner in the US. The Church has at least 1.7 million acres. All land owned by Chinese interests comes to less than 400k acres.

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

all land owned by foreign interests then Canada wins at 31%.

Go Canada!!! 🇨🇦

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, smac97 said:

Who’s Buying Nebraska? After shopping spree, Mormon church is top land purchaser

Wow.  370,000 acres is about 578 square miles (for comparison, Davis County, Utah is 634 square miles).

This is a reasonable complaint.

Perhaps this is as much of a "win-win" as can be hoped for.

I wonder if this estimate is correct.  That would be about 2,656 square miles, a bit larger than the State of Delaware.

Thanks,

-Smac

They're finally listening to me! 👍

[LoudmouthMormon]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The CCP can’t own US land. Their citizens and other legal entities can.

Heh.  Just thinking about the concept of a “communist citizen”.  
 

Kind of like “damp fire” or “indigenous alien”.  Closer would be “libertarian comrade”.  

[awyatt]

Who's Buying Nebraska

I think it is noteworthy that the story relies heavily on data produced by Truth & Transparency, which is the heir to the MomonLeaks site from years ago.

Truth & Transparency was sued out of business by the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Scientologists back in April 2022. I guess it doesn't stop them from being quoted as a reliable source 19 months after closing their doors.

The data about landholdings could be correct; it may not be correct. We have no way of knowing. The dark and devious implications imputed to the landholdings are almost certainly incorrect and the choice of sources should be considered suspect.

-Allen