Arkansas Business

Farmland Reserve Inc., an affiliate of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is among the players who have invested millions of dollars in Arkansas farmland.

According to agriculture insiders, the Salt Lake City venture intends to take advantage of the seller’s market and cash out of its east Arkansas farm holdings. Such a transaction could result in a deal north of $100 million.

The massive Farmland Reserve real estate portfolio includes five farms in Arkansas encompassing 27,156 acres in Cross, Jackson, Poinsett and Desha counties and a 2,082-acre farm a few miles across the state line in Butler County Missouri.

The properties are scattered from south of Poplar Bluff, Mo., to north of Dumas. In between is the largest of the six farms, a 19,644-acre spread in Cross County north of Parkin.

Farmland Reserve has been doing business in Arkansas since about 1999, according to records at the Secretary of State’s Office.

But interest in Arkansas farmland by the Mormon church goes back even further, to at least 1981, when the church became an agri landlord in Desha County.

All told, Farmland Reserve owns hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland across the nation and abroad.