St. Joe's sale of 598 sq. miles of Florida panhandle land to AgReserves, Inc., a farming and ranching company of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), coupled with the church's 295,166 acres in central Florida (Deseret Ranches), will give the LDS a total of 678,000 acres in Florida, making it the largest private holding in Florida. In 2011, TIME reported the LDS church had at least $30 billion in assets.

The St. Joe Company (NYSE: JOE), a resort and residential real estate developer, the largest landowner in northwest Florida with some 567,000 acres between Tallahassee and Destin, announced Nov. 7, 2013 an agreement to sell 382,834 acres (598 sq. miles) of its "nonstrategic timberland and rural land" in the panhandle to AgReserves, Inc., for $565 million.

St. Joe used to own over a million acres in Florida, but the financial crisis of 2008 and recession hit the company hard. St. Joe said the land deal was made to raise liquidity, leaving the company with only 184,000 acres in its portfolio.

AgReserves Inc., is a Utah-based taxpaying company of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The land purchase includes the majority of St. Joe's timberlands in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty and Wakulla counties.

"AgReserves has demonstrated its commitment to wise land stewardship and prudent resource management during more than 60 years of ranching and agricultural operations in east central Florida," pronounced Paul Genho, chairman of the board for AgReserves, Inc. "We will apply that same commitment and expertise to managing the property we are acquiring in Florida's panhandle."

The "60 years of ranching" Genho alludes to is Deseret Ranches, the LDS Church-owned land in central Florida, seven miles east of Orlando International Airport. Deseret Ranches says it employs "about 90 full-time highly skilled employees without regard to race or religion, including many Florida natives."

The ranches comprise Deseret Ranches of Florida, Deseret Cattle and Citrus, Taylor Creek Management, East Central Florida Services, Agreserves and Farmland Reserve Inc., the owner, which also has land in Oklahoma and Nebraska. The cattle side of the operation may be the largest cow-calf ranch in the U.S., with 44,000 cows and 1,300 bulls. The cattle ranch division is divided into 12 separate ranches of 3,500 cows each. Each cowboy manages about 1,000 cows. Deseret also has thousands of acres of citrus groves, vegetable farms, timberlands, and also produces sod and excavates seashell deposits for use in the construction industry. Fun fact: The word "Deseret" derives from the Book of Mormon. It means honeybee.

Deseret Ranches is largely roadless and unpopulated area southeast of Orlando, described by Farmland Reserve Inc., as "consisting mostly of cut-over timberland and wiregrass range land of extremely low quality." State officials, however, think that no other metro area in the state borders such a huge and potentially developable piece of property as Deseret Ranches, which covers three counties (Orange, Osceola and Brevard), and is considered increasingly important for the Orlando area water supply, road and rail network and future development. Orlando County and Florida water officials have planed for years to pump water from Taylor Creek Reservoir, which is within the boundaries of Deseret Ranches, to help supply the water needs of metro Orlando (pop. 2,134,411).

Fla. Gov. Rick Scott recently signed an executive order that creates the East Central Florida Corridor Task Force, whose role is to plan for roads, development and environmental protection in an area dominated by Deseret Ranches.