The Growth of Hunting Plantations and Leases

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The Growth of Hunting Plantations and Leases

• Matt Coley
• Bennett Dudley

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Commodity Prices

• Have experienced a large decrease in price
• Farm production costs have continued to
  increase.
  
• What is the farmer supposed to do?

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THE ANSWER

• Farmers should turn their land into hunting
  plantations.
  
• Another option for farmers is to lease their land
  to hunters.
  
• Hunters can help maintain wildlife management for
  the property and give the farmers more revenue.

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Disadvantages

• Guest might be present when you want to use your
  own land under annual lease contracts.
  
• Hard to monitor what is captured or killed each
  year.
  
• Ownership ties are one of the biggest problems
  with leasing land.
  
• Lessee might not be a steward of the land.
• Destruction of property.

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Advantages

• Landowners can become familiar with the
  individuals using the property.
  
• Little management costs for the landowner.
• Expected income is known in advance when
  leasing.
  
• Dont have to worry about the price of
  commodities.

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Attracting Guests

• Landowners can provide food and shelter for their
  guests.
  
• Provide a hunting guide or a guide service.
• Give the guests a feeling of the Antebellum South.

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Growth of Hunting Plantations

• The United States Census Bureau has been keeping
  track of the number of hunting plantations since
  1992.
  
• The number of plantations has risen from 187 in
  1992 to 360 in 1999.
  
• These numbers are for the hunting plantations
  that provide employment and do not include the
  family owned hunting plantations.

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Growth of Family-Owned Operations

• Family-owned hunting firms have also been on the
  rise in the past few years.
  
• These family-owned firms are classified by the
  U.S. Census Bureau as nonemployer firms.
  
• In the U.S. these numbers rose from 7,282 in 1998
  to 7,814 in 1999.
  
• These firms have also shown a large increase in
  the Southeast. In 1998 the Southeast had 912
  firms, and in 1999 they had 1,015 firms.
  

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The Profits Are There to be Made

• The family farms can be saved.
• Agriculture and nature-based tourism in the state
  of Georgia alone has 2.75 million customers per
  year.
  
• Deer hunting, the most popular type of hunting
  from hunting leases had an annual income of
  61,119,824 in 1999.
  
• Landowners lease their land on an average of
  10/acre.