American woman Rady Ananda runs an interesting website dedicated to discussion of food production issues, called ‘Food Freedom’. The site focuses on discussion relating to food safety, ‘food freedom’ (the right to choose one’s own food and farmer) and trade agreement issues. Rady draws attention to under-reported issues and controversial, thought-provoking topics.
A classic example of an article well worth reading concerns LDS Church ownership of rural land in Brazil. It’s not the only instance of controversy regarding rural land ownership by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS)/Mormon church. For example, the protest by potato farmers at Burley, Idaho in the U.S. Farm Weekly, raises questions about the impact of corporate ownership on local farmers, and whether church ownership is really much different to ownership by any other large corporation, whose sole focus is maximising profitability rather than welfare of local residents.
The LDS Church is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The LDS organisation that owns rural land is called AgReserves, and it operates in Australia as AgReserves Australia Limited. It operates as a charity (presumably tax free, yet without having any obligations regarding reporting where and how the profits have been spent). The worldwide assets owned by the LDS/Mormon Church run to billions of dollars. AgReserves Australia owns one of the most valuable farms in NSW, Kooba Station at Darlington Point (just south of Griffith).
Tags: Pastoral companies, Rural properties for sale and ownership, Rural foreign investment