How to Become a Rancher in Arizona
- 1). Acquire land. To be a rancher, you will need land, and lots of it. Cattle and other ranch animals graze on field grass, and need room to roam and forage. You can purchase the land outright, or you can sign a lease to use it. If you do lease or rent ranch land, however, be sure to have a backup plan, in case the owner decides to do something else with the property down the road.
- 2). Start an entity. While injuries are rare, they do occur among ranch hands, and that could cause liability for you. By establishing a corporation or limited liability, and having that business entity own your ranch, you can protect your personal assets from getting wiped out in the event of a lawsuit over an injury or other business agreement. You can form a corporation or limited liability company by filing articles of incorporation or articles of organization, respectively, with the Arizona secretary of state.
- 3). Decide on a business model. Some ranches focus on raising cattle for eventual slaughter for meat and leather. Others focus on recreation, such as working vacation ranches, and market themselves as tourist destinations. Some combine multiple approaches to profitability.
- 4). Obtain a business license. You will need a business license from whatever county you locate your ranching operations in. This process will also get you registered with state revenue collection officials.
- 5). Get workers' compensation coverage. If you have employees, you must get workers' compensation coverage for them, which protects the employee by guaranteeing there will be enough financial resources available to take care of them if they are injured on the job, and it protects your business by moving some of the risk of liability for injury to the workers' compensation pool. This may help your ranch avoid being driven into bankruptcy by a lawsuit.
- 6). Consider security. Ranchers in parts of Arizona are reporting problems from illegal immigration coming across the border. While in most cases these illegal immigrants simply want to pass through ranch lands unmolested, there have been instances of migrant-related violent crime. If you are new to the area, speak to local residents, and consider taking measures to protect yourself and family.
- 7). Familiarize yourself with tax regulations specific to ranching and farming. The IRS has a number of regulations and tax provisions that may be largely unknown to those new to the agriculture industry. For example, the laws governing the depreciation and exchanges of livestock can be complex, and not necessarily intuitive to people coming from another industry.
- 8). Become familiar with U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations specific to ranching. For example, ranchers who want to sell cattle to organic meat producers must comply with strict segregation requirements.
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