by Jon Kohler, JD
I remember the first time I went to a neighbor’s farm. What I remember was the way the family organized around the land. It was how each family member worked and knew their responsibilities.
It wasn’t his land in the way we think of ownership today – a deed, property lines on a plat map. It was ours. The family’s.
Then, something happened. Slowly at first, then faster. That world went away when everyone left the farm, only now to come back to “help grandad.”
But I’m here to share what happened to many a rural family farm – but also the news that it’s coming back. Different, but coming back. And, if you understand why it left, you’ll understand why what’s happening right now on hunting land across the South is nothing short of bringing back the family.
Back then, everyone had a different level of ownership – some held deeds, most held sweat equity. You earned your share. You’d spent July afternoons putting up hay. You’d helped pull a calf. You trapped the foxes that ate the hens that fed the family.
The land was the bond that kept families close. Raise their kids where they were raised. Multi-generational living wasn’t some lifestyle trend – it was just life. The land held us together because we worked it together. Then something changed.
Over 35 years in the land brokerage business, I’ve watched it firsthand. At first, I simply brushed it off to “changing times.” As I became wiser, I realized it was deliberate. How deliberate? Was this engineered? If so, why?
I’ve looked into all the theories. Federal programs. Globalist schemes to depopulate rural America and herd everyone into controllable cities. And while there’s no question that pressure exists today, I went back and looked at what actually happened when it all began in the 1980s.
Cattle have been a part of our rural lifestyle from the earliest European explorers. Florida recovered from the Civil War faster because it traded cattle for Cuban gold.
Yet now, replacing pasture are mostly miles of pine trees. Neat rows. Fence posts with rusted wire disappearing into the woods. Old pastures swallowed by timber. What happened? It’s as hard to believe that cattle were once about everywhere as it is the fact that Publix used to be closed on Sundays! In fact, the Taylor County Sheriff had a posse whose job was to round up strays. They came to our farm several times.
It wasn’t until I was about 15 that the rebounding deer population finally outnumbered the number of cows seen on the side of the road. Neighbors helped neighbors. Branding. Fencing. Hay sea-son. Cattle required constant attention – and that meant there was something for everyone to do. From the oldest man to the youngest boy, everyone had a role.
Then, in the early 1980s, the cattle market collapsed. Interest rates spiked. Drought ensued. Prices tanked. I watched ranchers sell land as the last resort. Folks whose families worked that land their whole lives – forced to make hard decisions due to forces they couldn’t control.
Back then, there wasn’t a recreational land market leading the way it does today. Land value came from what you could extract: timber, crops, minerals. The “most improved” land was the land that comes from shared hardship and shared success.
Because human nature dictates that it takes hard work to make a bond. The fact of the matter is that overcoming hardships and persevering to accomplish a goal is what builds character and ultimately a sense of ownership. The reasoning for many things can be found in the Bible.
In the Garden, everything was given. Just abundance.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to live during a time when one of the hardest things to do was come up with a name for all the animals. No sweat. No thorns. No frustration. That was until we frustrated God.
And God said to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.”
Not to be too discouraging, but today’s pulpwood market is weaker now than when all of this started, while cattle markets are at an all-time high. A problem we help many landowners with is that after they do harvest the timber, they don’t know if they should even replant it or what to do.
Fast-forward to today. Here’s the good news – and it is good news:
After COVID, something shifted. It took a pandemic to lead to the resurgence of rural land.
Suddenly, everyone wanted out of the city. Remote work was real. The slower-paced country lifestyle looked good again. And people started coming back to the land – not just to the same land, not only to Granddad’s old farm, but to all types of land.
Families wanted to start a new tradition. Not based on cattle or shared labor…but shared recreation. For shared memories. For experiences. Some were more worried about security, safety and independence, and we led them to what we coined Social Storm® Properties. A lot of these are just plain good hunting properties with a lot of extra attributes in case SHTF (you know, when things go sideways).
Others went out and focused purely on recreational tracts with the goal to make them even better – what my firm pioneered as Legacy Sporting Lands™.
While in the end, pulpwood proved to be a bad way to create wealth, it did lead to the abundance of whitetail deer, which is the basis of the recreational land phenomenon. Which is a good thing for family land.
Managing for wildlife takes everyone. Prescribed burns. Food plots. Timber stand improvement. Pond management. Trail maintenance. Infrastructure. The youngest kid can help plant a dove field. The teenager can run a chainsaw. Dad can teach his son about stewardship or a daughter about where the healthiest food really comes from.
It’s work – real, sweaty, meaningful work. The kind that bonds people to land and to each other. At the end of the day, deer hunting is a lot more fun than working cows!
I’ve watched families transform cut-over timberland into properties that now host three generations every Thanksgiving – not out of obligation, but because the land means something again. That transformation, what we call our Work-ing Lands Initiative – from asset to legacy – is what we guide families on how to do.
Here’s the irony: it takes massive effort to manage “natural” land. Thank Adam for that.
You have to reset ecosystems that were damaged. You have to undo monoculture pine plantations. You have to re-move invasive species like Bahia grass – the same grass we planted for cattle 40 years ago.
You have to fight against the curse – thorns, thistles, invasives, neglect – just to get back to something that looks natural.
Why?
Because the land doesn’t maintain itself. It never did. God told Adam that from the beginning. The wilderness is not neutral. It takes dominion – the kind Adam was supposed to exercise in the Garden. The kind we abandoned when we let the land sit idle under rows of pine trees.
But now? Families are taking dominion again. And it’s beautiful.
Today, there is a resurgence of being on the land. Improving it. Stewarding it.
I love every minute of seeing families together in the woods. The culture coming back. Tree stands for sale at every feed store. Hunters driving ATVs down county roads. People reading Woods ‘N Water because they care about this life.
This is the heyday of recreational land. But here’s what I really learned after 35 years of specializing in this niche.
The land was just the excuse that kept us together – branding cattle, putting up hay, mending fences. When the land stopped needing us, we stopped needing each other.
Today, what brings many of us together is working for recreation. It’s bird dogs. It’s big bucks. Grandkids learning to call a turkey. Granddad is in the middle of it all, not alone anymore, sharing God’s great creation with the people he raised.
The land didn’t come back. The family came back. The land just gave them another reason to.
And that’s the ultimate form of wealth.
From murky farm ponds to pristine glacier-cut lakes and everything in between, Knox Daniels’ expertise stems from a lifelong fascination of water and the creatures that live in and around it. He recognizes and helps clients appreciate the value water features bring to a property. “My goal is to help buyers realize and sellers maximize the value different water bodies bring to a property, not only in a recreational sense, but also for social storm reasons.” After extensively traveling the country for collegiate BASS fishing tournaments, Knox graduated and worked for the Southeast’s finest fisheries and wildlife biologist, Greg Grimes. With Grimes’ company, AES, Knox managed many of the southeast’s finest private lake estate/impoundment properties, and learned the intricacies of upscale property management. Learning from Greg and other biologists, Knox honed in on the specific conditions and habitat needed for optimal gamefish growth in private lakes. He has also worked as a property manager on several thousand acres and for a commercial developer, facilitating the dirt work and builds of several apartment complexes, but his true passion has always been in the outdoors. “I’ve always had an insatiable fascination with ponds/lakes and am grateful to be able to help to place clients on the properties of their dreams and make their personal fisheries/wildlife goals reality with JKA.” – Knox Daniels
Jason has been assisting landowners for the last 28 years in Georgia and South Carolina obtain achievements the owners did not realize were possible. His degree in Biology from Georgia Southern stemmed from the desire to know how things in nature work. His plantation roots began at just 16 years old outside of Albany, GA and the last 20 years were spent in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. His entire career has been spent developing a global approach to plantation management. That plan included sales. Sales is in Jason’s blood- his mom had a 45-year career as a real estate broker. After college, he chose to pursue his passion of making properties great. In 2011, Jason sold his first plantation. Since then, he has assisted buyers and sellers with over $20 million in sales while most of that time working as a full-time General Manager of a large Lowcountry plantation. Today, he is committed to using his unique skill set and experience to guide landowners through the many challenges of plantation ownership.
Bruce Ratliff is a retired elected official (Property Appraiser Taylor County). Bruce brings years of experience in ad valorem tax knowledge. His property tax background gives JKA Associates & clients a unique insight into the complicated tax process. Bruce held several positions in the Florida Association of Property Appraisers, including member of the Board of Directors, President, Vice-President and Secretary, and served on the Agricultural & Legislative Committees for the Association. The real estate business has been part of Bruce’s life since childhood. His mother, Shirley Ratliff owned Professional Realty of Perry, Florida and his father, Buster owned Ratliff Land Surveying which Bruce was General Manager of before his political career.
Hailing from a long line of outdoorsmen, Tim learned a great deal from his father and grandfather. He saw first-hand what it means to be a good land steward. He believes land is so much more than a place to hunt, fish, and grow timber or crops. “It’s an identity, a resting place, a safe haven and a way of life, said Tim.” Tim’s family ties to Alabama run deep. During his grandfather’s first term, Governor James was responsible for signing into law Alabama’s first state duck stamp which helped to ensure funding for the procurement, development, and preservation of wetlands for migratory waterfowl habitat. He also established Alabama’s lifetime hunting license, so it is no surprise that Tim is an avid outdoorsman with a keen eye as to how best to improve habitat for the greater good of its wildlife.
With Madison County roots, Lori grew up on her family farm at Pettis Springs along the historic Aucilla River. A love of the land was instilled in Lori very early on by her father who was a local farmer. Lori understands the importance of good land stewardship and has witnessed first-hand how her own father, a former 2-term member of the Florida House of Representatives whose district encompassed many rural counties of the Red Hills Plantation Region, with a little bit of sweat equity, so lovingly worked their own family land. These are core values she carries with her today, and nothing gives her more personal satisfaction than to represent some of the south’s best land stewards.
Cole’s dedication to land management lies in his family roots. As a fourth-generation timber expert, Cole’s earliest memories were spent with his father managing timber investments. With a degree in Food Resource Economics from the University of Florida, Cole is the epitome of an up-and-coming leader. He grew up with a hands-on approach to learning land management and conservation and has spent the last 15 years learning every angle of the real estate and forest industry. Cole is a member of the Florida Forestry Association, Red Hills Quail Forever, Southeastern Wood Producers Association and he uses this platform as an advocate for landowners and their land investments. His family has dedicated the past 60 years to providing landowners in North Florida and South Georgia with professional land management services focused on improving and protecting one’s forestland and wildlife investment. In fact, their family business, M.A. Rigoni, Inc., was one of the first to introduce whole tree chipping to the Red Hills Region.
As a landowner of his own family farm, Lick Skillet, along with family land that has been passed down and enjoyed together at Keaton Beach for 40 years, Jon knows what it means to be a steward of the last best places. As a third-generation land broker with more than 30 years of experience in advising landowners in this niche, Jon is known for his innate ability to harvest a land’s unique intrinsic value. Touting several notable sales under his belt, Jon personally closed Rock Creek/Molpus – 124,000 acres of premium timberland at $142,000,000 – which was known as the largest timberland land sale in the Southeast for eight years running. He is a co-founding member of LandLeader and achieved the real estate industry’s highest honor, “2022 National Broker of the Year – Recreational Land Sales,” by the Realtors® Land Institute.