The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ real estate arm is paying $289 million to acquire tens of thousands of acres of farmland across eight states. Farmland Reserve, a nonprofit arm of the Mormon Church, is buying 46 farms from real estate investor Farmland Partners.
The farms encompass 41,500 acres of land and include sites in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Carolinas. Doug Rose, CEO of Farmland Reserve, said the company plans to lease “these productive farms to local farmers.”
The LDS Church owns approximately 1.7 million acres of land primarily used for agriculture, according to Landgate, a commercial real estate advisory service, making it one of the largest institutional landholders in the U.S. It’s estimated the church owns $16 billion worth of property across the country, with around $2 billion for agriculture land.
