Thinking outside the box landed this California beef producer’s entire herd inside Whole Foods. BY HENRY CHAPPELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD FIELD LEVINE, STEVE MILLER + ALEXANDER VERTIKOFF The Piedra Blanca Rancho lords over the Pacific roughly halfway between San Francisco…
Congratulations are in order to our 2018 Deals of the Year honorees. These standout sales are the focus of our July newsletter. They include: 2018 Deal of the Year: Wasatch Peaks Ranch 2018 Conservation Deal of the Year: Cabin Bluff…
No. 16 O’Connor Heirs 587,800 acres By the time of his death in 1887, Irish immigrant Thomas O’Connor (1817—1887) owned half a million acres in Southeast Texas and close to 100,000 head of cattle. His philosophy? “Buy land and never…
One of largest vertically-integrated, family-owned tree-fruit farms in the PACIFIC NORTHWEST sold in December. – Eric O’Keefe Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has acquired Washington State’s Broetje Orchards. The blockbuster transaction, which included 6,175 acres of tree-fruit orchards, closed in December.…
R-CALF USA joined with four cattle-feeding ranchers in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming to file a class-action lawsuit against the largest US beef packers. The Big Four packers — Cargill, JBS, National Beef, and Tyson — are accused of conspiring…
Walmart’s first foray into the beef industry follows a nationwide trend toward transparency in the food supply chain. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based behemoth announced plans to source much of the Black Angus cuts it sells in 500 stores across the Southeast…
Following the wettest 12 months on record in North America, the continental US is now virtually drought-free. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration reported that precipitation in the US from May 2018 to April 2019 topped 36 inches, shattering a…
No. 14 Lykes Heirs 615,000 acres With more than half of the family acreage nestled in Glades and Highland counties in Florida, heirs of Dr. Howell Tyson Lykes (1846—1906) maintain a thriving a cow-calf operation centered on the Brangus breed.…
No. 13 Briscoe Heirs 640,000 acres Former Texas governor Dolph Briscoe Jr. (1923—2010) ranked as the single largest landowner in Texas. Three generations of the Briscoe family have stewarded their 100,000-acre CATARINA RANCH in South Texas, the epicenter of the…
No. 12 Wilks Brothers 702,367 acres FRAC TECH founders Farris and Dan Wilks own ranches in Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas, and they rank as the state’s leading landowners in Montana and Idaho. At least they did at press time. Wilks…
