3-Part 'Harvest of Faith' Series on BYUtv Highlights Church’s Welfare Efforts

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In 1936, during the Great Depression, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints created its welfare program to care for Church members in need and strengthen their abilities to become self-reliant.

Today, the Church’s welfare efforts assist people of all faiths, or no faith, around the world.

Bishop L. Todd Budge, First Counselor in the Church’s Presiding Bishopric, said the welfare system of the Church is founded on principles of work, dignity, self-reliance and a desire to follow the two great commandments — love of God and love of neighbor.

“We always have surpluses, and those surpluses go to food pantries across the United States to serve all of God’s children,” Bishop Budge said.

The system includes orchards, vineyards, livestock operations and other types of agricultural operations. Crops include green beans, sweet corn, peaches, pears, apples, wheat, sugar beets, potatoes, grapes and peanuts.

A three-part series on on BYUtv’s “Living Record: A Church News Documentary Series” called “Harvest of Faith” provides an in-depth look at the welfare efforts of the Church.

The first part features welfare farms. The second looks at welfare food processing and distribution facilities owned and operated by the Church. The third focuses on AgReserves, the commercial arm of Farmland Reserve, an investment affiliate of the Church.

Welfare Farms

Blaine Maxfield, managing director of the Church’s Welfare and Self-Reliance Services, said there are around two dozen welfare farms, most in the western United States.

“We have a very limited number of actual employees that work on the farms, and that’s for a specific reason. The reason is because we want to provide opportunities for those that serve,” Maxfield said.

Volunteers and service missionaries plant, grow and harvest the food. And in the process, they are coming closer to Jesus Christ.

Havest-of-Faith
Potatoes roll down a conveyer belt at the Taylorview Crops Farm in Idaho Falls, Idaho, during a a "Harvest of Faith" episode of the Church News' 2025 "Living Record" documentary series available on BYUtv. Photo by Tim Irwin, courtesy of Church News.All rights reserved.

“I believe that as equal to the food that we produce at our farms, it’s equally as important the lives that we’re changing,” Maxfield said. “That’s the law of the harvest, perhaps the real law of the harvest as it pertains to Welfare and Self-Reliance farms.”

There are challenges to relying on volunteer labor, Bishop Budge said. Sometimes people fulfill their assignments; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they have the skill set, and sometimes they don’t. But it’s well worth it, he said.

“It’s less about productivity and more about the transformation of souls,” he said.

Learn more in this related Church News article ‘Harvest of Faith’ Part 1: A look at the Church’s welfare farms

WATCH NOW: Harvest of Faith: Inside canneries, factories and bishops’ storehouses

Food Processing and Distribution Facilities

Soon after the organization of the Church in 1830, the Church established bishops’ storehouses — places where grain and other donated commodities were stored and distributed to help members in need.

Today there are more than 100 bishops’ storehouses. Together with processing plants in the United States and Canada, these facilities package and bottle food for all kinds of communities all over the world.

Presiding Bishop W. Christopher Waddell said the Church has nine production facilities such as mills, canneries, bakeries and dairies.

“In 2023, there were 85 million pounds of products that were produced. When we are blessing someone and reaching out to help someone that’s hungry, it’s as if we were doing it to the Savior Himself,” Bishop Waddell said.

Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson said the Church’s humanitarian efforts are directed at not just the members “but also our brothers and sisters, our neighbors all around the world.”

“When the Savior fed the 5,000, He didn’t leave those that had come to hear Him preach hungry, but He addressed their temporal needs,” President Johnson said. “He filled their bellies, and then He filled their souls and their hearts. And so we hope to do the same thing.”

Learn more in this related Church News article ‘Harvest of Faith’ Part 2: Inside canneries, factories and bishops’ storehouses

WATCH NOW: Harvest of Faith: Processing & Distribution

AgReserves

From Chile to Brazil to the United States, AgReserves farms and ranches are not only growing food to be sold around the world, they are also growing people.

AgReserves is the commercial arm of Farmland Reserve, a world-class agricultural investment company that is an integrated investment auxiliary of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Doug Rose, the president and CEO of AgReserves and Farmland Reserve, explained: “Farmland Reserve is a nonprofit company that invests in agricultural assets. AgReserves is a subsidiary of Farmland Reserve that operates many of the investments that we make in agricultural assets. We own agricultural land in nine countries and over 30 states. We employ thousands of employees across the globe of all faiths and backgrounds, and the food that we grow is sold into the commercial marketplace.”

Unlike the Church’s welfare farms, the investment farms under AgReserves are operated by paid staff. The company pays taxes and generates profit.

“All of that in the end will be used to support the sacred mission of the Church,” Rose said.

Rose explained that agriculture as an investment is unique because it’s a stable and safe investment.

“If the economy is doing really well, agriculture does well. If the economy is not doing well, agriculture does well. What sets us apart as an investor and as an operator is that we are always looking to the long term in all that we do,” Rose said.