Landowner Profiles

“Re-Born to the Land”. That is my landownership profile.

Several years ago, maybe 2005, Texas A&M graduate student, Jennifer Clearley Sanders, gave a wonderful presentation about landowners’ relationship with the land. Sanders presented to a landowners’ educational weekend seminar in Brenham. Her presentation has stuck in my mind as one of her categories of landowners described us so well (for future reference, when I say “we” or “us” it is not the royal We or US but rather “we” or “us” as in my spouse and me). One stated objective of Sanders’ research was to determine if there are differences between “traditional” landowners and “newer” landowners in their attitudes about the land. Okay, I’m “newer” landowner.

After conducting interviews with Texas landowners, Sanders place landowners into one of three general landowner profiles, which describe the landowners’ relationship with the land: 1) Born to the Land; 2) Ag-Business; and, 3) Re-Born to the Land. (I recall from her talk a category “New to the Land”, but her literature uses the three above so, let’s go with them). When she described the folks in the Re-Born to the Land profile, it was as if she secretly spied on our activities at Dogwood Ranch! However, I note with dismay that this category of landowner is, to some degree, vilified by the Born to the Land landowners. In order to understand the mindset and spirit of Dogwood Ranch activities, a brief description of Sanders’ landowner profiles will be helpful. If you are truly interested in Sanders’ research, I recommend reading her master’s thesis paper; here is the link.

http://repository.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/2412/etd-tamu-2005A-WFSC-sanders.pdf?sequence=1