LIVING HISTORY
22
ROBERT ADAMS
Actor Robert Duvall is one of the many celebrities who has visited Bud at
Adams Ranch.
gained plenty of recognition. He is a 1999 Florida Agriculture
Hall of Fame inductee, and he and his ranch have won practically
every award a ranch can win, including the 1997 National
Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Cattle Business of the Century
Award and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s
2013 Landowner of the Year Award. But the general
population needs to take notice, too. To keep ranching alive
in Florida and all the vital conservation that goes with it, you
need people who love the cowboy way of life. Such devotion
may be increasingly tested as developers move inland
in search of areas for expansion. That’s why state and federal
governments are experimenting with conservation easement
programs to incentivize future generations of cattlemen to
hold onto ranchlands that benefit us all environmentally.
Although cattle raising has existed since biblical days, going
back to Abraham and Lot, it was not until the last century
that scientists in the saddle like Bud Adams began studying
Earth’s adverse responses to careless cultivation practices.
Bud has been at the forefront of a movement to restore a
healthy balance of nature that makes room for all God’s
creatures and for agriculture, too. The substance of deeper
value that must be preserved, the thing that counts as much >>
“The Adams Ranch conservation
program lies at the heart of our
business. The hammocks of
Adams Ranch are the longest tract
of hammocks left in the Indian
River District. We hope to see
it preserved… At my age, I am
concerned about how the land will
look 50 to 100 years from now.”
— Bud Adams, The Old Florida.
BUD ADAMS