News, Insights & Interviews Archive

Every now and then, something comes along that sounds like it belongs in a science fiction movie. It goes something like this: Hydrogen is trapped 8,000 feet beneath Iowa farmland. Private developers extract it. Landowners have a new source of income. Their neighbors have new protections. Eventually – maybe, just maybe – residents across the state could see lower income taxes. They might not pay income taxes at all.

If you want to make it rain, you should just pull the combine out of the shed. That’s the joke. The absence of rain…until it arrived much too late…has not been funny to farmers in the Southern Plains.

For almond growers, the last several years have been defined by difficult choices, tight margins, and a lot of uncertainty. But according to Carl Evers III, President of AgIS Capital Property Management and Director of Sustainability, the industry may finally be finding some balance.

A man in one country and a woman from another country who randomly met at a concert, dated long-distance, and started as farmers largely by persistence and the generosity of an older couple, hope that others can replicate their agricultural pathway to profitability. Although, they don’t expect others to follow their exact steps.

Water has always been life in agriculture. In Washington state, it’s also become a source of tension for some family farmers.

Mitchell Hora, an Iowa farmer and soil health consulting company owner, will soon have a decade of experience putting on his TopSoil Summit. The question is whether he will have a vital answer in time for the 300-500 farmers and investors from across the country who will show up.

Farmland investing has been increasingly appealing to some people as an inflation hedge. But some potential investors have stayed away because they don’t want their money tied up for too long.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube No doubt that some farmers are feeling serious financial pressure now. But much of the overall agricultural sector can handle this if some of that pressure is not long-lasting, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Senior Vice President Nate Kauffman believes. Kaufmann, who has worked for the Kansas City Fed for more than 14 years, is also the Center for Agriculture and the Economy Executive Director. His role demands a

The rapid rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is reshaping how Americans eat. And that shift is beginning to slice through one of the country’s most iconic crops: potatoes. For growers, particularly in states like Idaho, Washington, Wisconsin, and Colorado, the health phenomenon could lead to piles of potatoes unless the potato industry can overcome this latest challenge.

Listen and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts The Global AgInvesting World Summit in New York City has long been a bellwether event for institutional capital flowing into agriculture. This year, the gathering of 700 people from across the globe will see a change in focus to reflect issues that will shape the agricultural landscape for years to come. “For ’26, there were things that were a lot different than ’25,” said Global AgInvesting World Summit Conference P

Listen and subscribe to our weekly podcast on Spotify | Apple Podcasts The challenges facing rural America aren’t hard to find. Walk into any grocery store, talk to a cattle producer, or drive through a small town that’s lost a major employer, and the pressure points become obvious. But according to Small Business Administration Regional Director Brad Zaun, there’s a coordinated effort underway to change that trajectory—starting with access to capital and a renewed focus on c

The years-long increase in farmland values may finally fall victim to financial pressure’s gravity after previously showing remarkable resilience despite inflation, supply chain strains, input cost increases, and declining farmer incomes. That is the feeling from Curt Covington, Senior Director of Institution Credit at AgAmerica Lending.

Mark Mueller is a fourth-generation farmer from northeast Iowa who has grown corn for three decades and serves in a statewide role with a national voice. Those credentials are likely the reason that he received a V.I.P. invite to an event at the White House.

Brian Reisinger has worked for a governor who ran for president, a U.S. Senator who ran for president, and another U.S. Senator who thought about running for president. These days, Reisinger has put politics aside as he has focused full-time on agriculture, his business, and his young family.

The family farm required the same characteristic that helped Joshua Manske thrive on the golf course: patience. Agriculture was never really something Manske left behind. But it was something that patiently waited for him to return.

As renewable energy projects expand across rural America, many landowners are weighing the benefits of wind and solar leases against concerns from neighbors and local officials. For farmers looking for financial stability in a volatile agricultural economy, the conversation increasingly centers on how to find reasonable compromises that allow development while addressing community concerns. That balancing act is at the heart of the work being done by the Renewable Energy Farm

Listen and subscribe on Spotify | Apple Podcasts The farmland may be paid off and generating income. But looming capital gains taxes can make a straight sale financially painful. Or maybe an heir isn’t so sure that owning a farm is really what he wants to do in the years ahead. That is where a 721 exchange could be an option. “We're one of the few firms that have ever done it or tried it in the farmland space,” said Ethan Branscum, Director of Investments at Sower Farmland, w

When an 86-year-old farmer along the Route 81 corridor in central Pennsylvania was offered roughly $60,000 an acre for his land, the math was staggering. At 261 acres, the total approached $15 million.

Listen on Spotify | Apple Podcasts Farms are getting bigger, and there are fewer farms each year. Those changes have taken place over a number of years. But Dennis Reyman, Partner at Stalcup Agricultural Services in Storm Lake, Iowa, said one factor remains constant in a constantly changing agricultural industry: farmers are still doing most of the farm buying. “…as far as land ownership, the trends are kind of the same as they usually are,” Reyman told American Farmland Ow

For rural landowners, renewable energy remains one of the most talked-about — and misunderstood — developments shaping the countryside. Waylon Brown, Regional Policy Manager for Clean Grid, sees both the promise and the growing pains facing wind, solar, and battery storage across the Midwest.