But despite its size and its stature in the nation's cattle industry, most Floridians have never heard of Deseret Ranch. "We like to keep a low profile," says general manager Ferren Squires. Posted on 01/08/2002 11:27:24 AM PST by Rubber Duckie
One cowboy prods calves quickly through a gate. As each calf thunders down a narrow alley, another cowboy calls out a number, one through five. This tells the next cowboy, positioned atop a turnaround, which of five doors to swing open to direct the calf into the right pen. From the pens, the calves will be run through another alley onto a huge scale for weighing. Then they will be rushed along again onto 18-wheel cattle trucks idling nearby that will haul them to feedlots or pastures in Texas, Oklahoma or Kansas.
By 9 a.m., the men have sorted 500 calves. By the end of the day, they'll have moved a total of 1,944 calves weighing 963,710 pounds onto 20 trucks. "This is payday," says Kevin Mann, the cowboy atop the turnaround. "This is what we work toward all year long."
The ranch won't disclose financial information, but last year it moved more than 16 million pounds of calves -- they are sold by weight, not by the animal-- which translated into about $16 million in revenues. For a cattle ranch, those numbers are huge, and not just by the standards of central Florida or even the cattle industry statewide. Deseret Ranch is the largest cow-calf operation in the U.S., with 44,000 head of cattle on 300,000 acres. Seen on a map of Florida, the sprawling ranch dwarfs neighboring metro Orlando, stretching 50 miles long and 30 miles wide over parts of three counties: Orange, Osceola and Brevard. Its northwestern tip is 10 miles from Orlando International Airport. Its southeastern tip stretches almost to Palm Bay.
But despite its size and its stature in the nation's cattle industry, most Floridians have never heard of Deseret Ranch. "We like to keep a low profile," says general manager Ferren Squires.
That profile is in keeping with the business style of the ranch's owner, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. The fastest-growing church in the U.S., with a 4.7% annual growth rate, the church is also by far the richest per capita. While its media guide states innocuously that the church has a limited number of commercial properties and investments, a Time magazine financial analysis of the church in 1997 pegged its assets at a minimum of $30 billion. If it were a corporation, the magazine found, the church would fall in the middle of the Fortune 500, below Union Carbide and PaineWebber, but bigger than Nike and the Gap. Among others, the church runs media, insurance, travel and real estate companies along with agribusiness operations. In Florida, besides Deseret Ranch, the church also operates tomato and citrus farms in Ruskin, Naples and Clewiston.
The church's success in business is very much rooted in its history, scholars of Mormonism say. Members faced extreme ostracism and poverty before they made their trek from Illinois to Salt Lake City in 1847, the same year Brigham Young wrote that "the kingdom of God cannot rise independent of Gentile nations until we produce, manufacture and make every article of use, convenience or necessity among our people." Once in Utah, the Mormons' isolation forced them to build their own farms, factories and railroads. As they struggled through the Great Depression, they also began to build their famous welfare system, the largest non-public venture of its kind in the nation.
The church will not reveal precisely how it spends the money it takes in from its businesses and from members tithing contributions-- 10% of their incomes. But it says it uses the greatest portion to build churches. The rest is spent on worldwide humanitarian aid for which the church is well-known; its vast educational system, which includes Brigham Young University, and long-term investments in its private ventures.
Like its grain and other food-manufacturing operations, the church's agribusinesses, including Deseret Ranch, have another ecclesiastical role. Mormons believe that years of turmoil will precede the return of Jesus and that church members must prepare for self-reliance, storing long-term supplies, including food. In the future, Squires says, beef from the ranch could help feed people in case of a catastrophe. The church teaches its parishioners to always have on hand one year's salary and one year's food supply, so this is basically practicing what we preach, he says.
Church-going cowboy
Deeply tanned and covered in a fine layer of dust, Squires, 47, wears Wrangler jeans on skinny hips and drives his Ford F-250 at breakneck speed along the graded roads of the ranch. Down-to-earth and quick to smile, Squires seems like the prototypical cowboy. But he wears many other hats: A father of six, Squires speaks Japanese, a result of a proselytizing mission to Japan as a young man. He holds a masterfs degree in agricultural business from BYU, is a former official with the Mormons massive welfare headquarters in Salt Lake City and serves on the presidential council of the church's Cocoa stake, a Mormon organizational unit similar to a diocese.
Granting a rare tour, Squires drives along mile after mile of sprawling pastureland dotted with stands of palm trees and thick oaks. Only a sliver of the ranch, the eastern edge along the St. Johns River, is still densely wooded. Deseret is divided into 14 units, each with a couple of thousand cows and its own complex of pens, a barn and a cowboy office. The cowboys spend time on laptop computers as well as on horseback, entering every detail of their calves lives: The calves are born in January, February and March; summer is spent fattening them up and keeping them healthy; fall is the payday that Mann describes.
In the middle of the property, Squires pulls up to an old cracker house with hardwood floors, a stone fireplace and a wrap-around screened-in porch where ceiling fans turn lazily in the afternoon heat. The house serves as Deseret's history center and as temporary home to one of the five retired Mormon couples that volunteer on the ranch. The living room is furnished with brown leather couches, along with a stuffed Osceola turkey, wild boar and white-tailed deer. The book Florida Cowman shares the coffee table with The Book of Mormon. A stand in one corner of the room holds a handsome old saddle and whip; a stand in the other holds a guitar and songbook open to Mormon hymns. On the walls hang photos of famous Mormons, including a number of cattlemen.
After a visit to the Sunshine State in 1949, western cattleman and church leader Henry D. Moyle became convinced that Floridafs climate would make it an ideal place to raise cattle. (The key to the industry, as uncomplicated as it may seem, is growing grass.) Moyle pitched his idea for a Florida ranch to fellow members of the church's first presidency, the Mormons worldwide leadership council. The council bought the original 54,000-acre tract in 1950. In 1952, a dozen Mormon families sold their homes out west and moved to the property to help the church turn wetlands and tangled forests into roads and pasturelands.
It took nearly 50 years, but Deseret's managers eventually proved Moyle right. By cross-breeding cows for speedy growth, good reproduction and climate tolerance and by developing and perfecting grasses for central Florida, they have achieved some of the highest weights, and therefore some of the highest profits, in the industry. Deseret Ranchfs average weaning weight, a calf's weight at nine months, when it can be weaned and sold, has increased from 300 pounds in 1981 to 546 pounds last year. Statewide, the average is closer to 450 pounds, says Jim Handley, executive vice president of the Florida Cattlemen's Association.
Today's going market price is around 85 cents a pound, down from about $1 a pound earlier this year but up from 65 cents during an industry slump three years ago. According to Squires, Deseret spends about 62 cents to produce each pound it sells.
At the University of Florida in Gainesville, animal science professor emeritus Alvin C. Warnick says the church has achieved some of the highest profits in the industry because of its long-term commitment to the ranch . . .and its deep pockets. The ranch's heavy, healthy calves are a result of lots of years and lots of money spent on ultra-sensitive genetics and breeding work, he says. They have earned a reputation for calves that turn out good carcasses, grade well and do well in the feedlots, Warnick says. Their buyers are repeat buyers from all over the country.
The ranch's size and success help it attract some of the top animal-scientist graduates in the nation, Warnick says. Several of the cowboys hold bachelors or masters degrees. The church puts a premium on its workforce and manages with an employee-centered philosophy. Most of Deseret's 80 employees live on the ranch, which has 65 tidy homes scattered over its acreage. Pay is at or higher than the industry average, and the ranch offers profit-sharing as well as professional-development programs.
The Mormons, big on big families, are also big on family perks: The ranch hires employees children in a work program each summer and sponsors a pay-for-grades program that gives cash to employees kids on the A-B honor role. Other family amenities include horseback riding and an elaborate swimming hole with wooden docks, diving platforms, slides and rope swings.
Squires says while a good portion of Deseret's employees are Mormon, the ranch is an equal-opportunity employer. Still, non-Mormon employees clearly have to accept a work culture dominated by Mormons. There isn't a coffee machine to be found in ranch offices. No alcohol is allowed in common areas. Single employees canft have overnight guests of the opposite sex. And the swimming hole is closed on Sundays.
Back at the cattle drive, Kevin Mann, a non-Mormon cowboy who lives on the ranch, says Deseret's religious underpinnings made him leery of working there, but its reputation persuaded him to give it a try. Five years later, he says, he is glad he did, as much for the career opportunities as for the community that his wife and two young daughters enjoy. "You wonder if they're going to hound you, but they never have," Mann says of the Mormons reputation for proselytizing. The best side to it is that they're very family-oriented, so it's a great place to raise your kids even if you're not Mormon.
The ranch's neighbors, too, give it high marks. The ranch is among the biggest taxpayers in Osceola County. (The church pays taxes on all its private businesses and in fact has a policy of not accepting government subsidies, including farm subsidies. The policy is related to the church's welfare program, whose basis is individual self-reliance, not a handout that might rob the receiver of self-respect.
Osceola County Commissioner Chuck Dunnick describes Deseret as benevolent to the surrounding community, professional in its dealings with local government and a good steward of the environment. The ranch has its own staff of wildlife biologists and has worked with state and local agencies on a progressive wildlife-management plan, Dunnick says. "They've been very quiet over the years, but if they do want to talk about an issue, you know they're going to be highly professional and well-prepared," he says. They're great neighbors. If you could pick your own neighbors, I'd definitely pick them."
Ecclesiastical entrepreneurism
While the church is committed to stewardship of the land, it is just as committed to squeezing profits out of its private companies. And eventually, those two missions are sure to clash on this prime central Florida property. Real estate sources estimate Deseret's spread is worth some $900 million, though the assessed agricultural value is far lower than that. For decades, the family cattle ranches that once made up Osceola and outlying Orange counties have been gobbled up by housing developments, a pattern that is repeating itself throughout Florida and the nation. But because the church is so rich, it has not yet buckled to pressure to sell any of its Florida land to developers. Ten years ago, the church backed off a plan to develop 7,000 acres near the Bee Line Expressway under sharp criticism from environmentalists.
Often at odds in other parts of the country over issues such as animal waste and grazing, the tree-huggers and the cowpokes in central Florida have for now become allies. For example, environmentalists helped Deseret fight a huge landfill Brevard County wanted to put adjacent to the ranch. That area is also home to one of the largest bird rookeries in the state.
Squires says the church's long-term plans for the majority of Deseret Ranch are to keep it agricultural. But he acknowledges the business-savvy church will develop the fringes, particularly its property outside Orlando, as the land becomes more valuable. "The pressure is here," Squires says. "But we want to be responsible and be good neighbors." It is in his church's ecclesiastical and entrepreneurial missions to do so, he says.
I find the history of the Latter-Day Saints movement fascinating, as you obviously do. If we disagree on a point of history, it does not mean I am attacking your right to your beliefs.
Thank you I hope so...
I been pondering history how things and people have changed over the last couple of centuries and have been allowed to grow all accept the LDS...
The LDS are endlessly held to the past while others are held accountable for their behavior today no one on this earth arrived with perfect abilities it was all trial and error trying to figure out the instructions we were given but for some reason the LDS were not allowed that same courtesy.
This type of behavior reminds me of belonging to a Union you don’t dare go against the norm, if the members are mediocre, you too are to remain mediocre.
Just because the Lord says you should strive to keep the Ten Commandments, don’t! you really shouldn’t if you want to get along in this world!
***
As I witness in general people of all faith who practice their faith have grown up towards the ways of the Lord.
What folks were like in the 1800’s or the turn of the century and each defining moment have let go of their sacred cows and took on more of the teachings of the Lord because they are teachable.
No one is going back to hold those in other faiths who were limited in their understandings in those growing years, because that would not be the Christian thing to do.
Yet some of them today continue to hold the LDS back in the 1800’s when LDS too have been counsel and edified in the ways of the Lord down through the years.
Those who converted to LDS were from other faiths and many converts brought along with them the good the bad things they learn in the ways of the Tradition of men instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
When our constitution was being form, many of those men had also baggage they brought along from the old country some good and bad.
I believed Lord wanted on this piece of land to set-up his earthly government that our founding Fathers established, and the Restoration for His Church, for those who were longing for the Lord’s truth, over some version of a moral man who could only exercise temporal lessons, but in order to receive the Eternal truths, they could only be obtained by the Powers of Heaven through the Lord’s Priesthood being once again on earth.
Most of what was practiced in the earth was a variation and man could only draw upon his limited understanding.
BTW the founding fathers wanted in their day to rid of slavery, but because many citizens who were Christians (no LDS in those days) were unable too and would not agree for various reasons, mainly economic so the issue was to resolve in 20yrs which it did not, because people were complacent and never made a move to rid of this injustice.
Sounds like our Amnesty mess today, during the Reagan years we as a nation were suppose to resolve this issue in but reality it has to do with economics and prejudice...
I pray some can understand there is a double standard going on here...
BTW This thread is from 2002 I feel I been punk I guess Elsie is leaving his vindictiveness everywhere...
Another thing “Joseph Smith said those who study the Bible often like it the most!
Still agreeing to those FILTHY things your leaders have said.
Pathetic!
I suppose this was some kind of a point?
Yep; you guys OWN the 'past'
The religion you have chosen to join claims it has RESTORED the past.
Your chosen religion makes it's OWN rules and then does not follow them.
Why do you deceived Mormons then blame ME for pointing out how screwed up your leaders are?
Yep; you guys OWN the 'past'
The religion you have chosen to join claims it has RESTORED the past.
Your chosen religion makes it's OWN rules and then does not follow them.
Why do you deceived Mormons then blame ME for pointing out how screwed up your leaders are?
Oh shut UP!
YOU are the one who WILL NOT call your chosen religions leaders VINDICTIVE with the BILE they have spewed in the direction of CHRISTIANS.
If you want to continue to avoid speaking about it; it shows that you might just be afraid your tight little world will crumble about you.
Believe this all you want; but you MUST take it on FAITH, for there is NO evidence of ANY 'restoration'.
BTW; that's kinda cute - slipping in that the LDS religious organization is the ONLY way to get these supposed 'truths'.
The 4.7% number is misleading. Once on the church roles, it is almost impossible to have your name removed.
People have remained on the roles of the Mormon church for as long as decades after their last visit to a local ward.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with Mormons claiming all other churches to be abominations; that and the over 4,000 changes to the most perfect book ever written.
The Mormon church used to teach that it wasn't Christian.
Oh shut UP!
****
Oh Yes, yes everyone wants to aspire to Elsie brand of being a Christian LOL
The church of the bully pulpit
***
I witness the restoration everyday BTW.....
I hope you realized this thread was in 2002 and UG has not been around since 2012.
***
All have something to say about those Mormons this was resurrected from 2002 but through the years Deseret Ranch quietly have been do the American thing and others like to do their own revisions of the LDS
Deseret Land and Livestock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl-2lT2aNWU
Environmental Stewardship - Deseret Cattle & Citrus - 2010 Region II Award Winner
http://wn.com/deseret_ranches
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Oh Yes, yes everyone wants to aspire to Elsie brand of being a Christian LOL
Poor restornu - proving once again that she does NOT follow what the bible teachs!
By cross-breeding cows for speedy growth, good reproduction and climate tolerance and by developing and perfecting grasses for central Florida, they have achieved some of the highest weights, and therefore some of the highest profits, in the industry.
... the ranch offers profit-sharing as well as professional-development programs.
...the church has achieved some of the highest profits in the industry because of its long-term commitment to the ranch ...
While the church is committed to stewardship of the land, it is just as committed to squeezing profits out of its private companies.
Then you should be able to show; FROM YOUR SCRIPTURES; just one, tiny bit of RESTORATION that your chosen religious organization brags about.
The
DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS
OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
SECTION 71
1 Behold, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants Joseph Smith, Jun., and Sidney Rigdon, that the time has verily come that it is necessary and expedient in me that you should open your mouths in proclaiming my gospel, the things of the kingdom, expounding the mysteries thereof out of the scriptures, according to that portion of Spirit and power which shall be given unto you, even as I will.
You really want to IGNORE the data being presented because it's TWELVE years old??
No WONDER you'll ignore anything ELSE your 'restored church' has taught!
profit, Profit, PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT!!!
Squires says the church's long-term plans for the majority of Deseret Ranch are to keep it agricultural. But he acknowledges the business-savvy church will develop the fringes, particularly its property outside Orlando, as the land becomes more valuable.
Keep on talking...
If you decode this; could you clue ME in as to it's meaning?
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