There is a huge amount of abuse in landowner tags. I have a friend that buys tags for every season he can get and takes every landowner tag he can get, He jokes that he hunts year round. He's out there every season! And mostly he's hunting around food plots on his farm. Why can a guy get a free deer tag to shoot a buck over a food plot? Not he's trying to get deer depradation permits too!
If Landowner tags are intended to reduce the deer population on specific farms, then they should be required to shoot a doe.
I think we should do away with the free landowner tags and stick with depradation permits only where the landowner can prove damage. I know this is entrenched in our rural culture, and it will be hard to change, but the abuse is rampant and the time to start the change is the sooner the better.