News, Insights & Interviews Archive

Listen to this interview on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. John Heneghan is a self-professed “bean counter.” It’s in his DNA. His dad was an...

This episode is also available on Spotify and  Apple Podcasts. As a teenager in central Illinois, Cody Dahl envisioned a career working...

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. His smile is almost always present. The determination and purpose behind...

This episode is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Corn, beans, and cotton were all part of Carter Malloy’s upbringing in...

This episode is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. “Everyone has their own theory on farming,” Jackson Drost explained to American Farmland Owner. The fact that he was standing atop a snow-covered mountain in Aspen, Colorado, while his wife, Amanda, joined the conversation from her office in Pella, Iowa, demonstrated the family’s theory on farming.   A key tenant of that theory is diversification, which is evident in nearly every aspect of their lives. “It’s a way

This episode is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. “I described it as agriculture returning back to normal,” said Dr. Chad...

This interview is also available on Spotify and  Apple Podcasts . For 16 years, Steve Bruere, President of Peoples Company, has brought in some of the biggest names in agriculture, real estate, public policy, research, finance, politics, and entertainment – including T. Boone Pickens, Martha Stewart, and Donald Trump – to take part in Peoples Company's annual Land Investment Expo in Des Moines, Iowa. The event takes place in January. And January in Iowa often can deliver the

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts . “We had a lot going on in 2023,” Micah Brown, staff attorney for the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas, told American Farmland Owner. Brown reflected on what states have done to restrict foreign land ownership in the United States for certain countries. But what’s next? And what role could the U.S. Supreme Court play in determining whether foreign entities can own land in America? B

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts You can “Google” many things on the internet. However, Eric O’Keefe needs a lot of “sleuthing,” too. “We do word of mouth with landowners with brokers, with auctioneers, with appraisers. We obviously use a lot of technology, too, from a database standpoint to be able to go online and look at county records and do searches that way,” said O’Keefe, the editor of The Land Report, a Texas-based industry publication. Y

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Harrison Pittman is a key thought leader at one of the country’s top entities that follows the intersection of agriculture and the law. In his more than two decades in that role, he has never witnessed the level of scrutiny on foreign farmland ownership that he is seeing now. “What we see going on right now,” Pittman told American Farmland Owner, “…it’s a historically significant shift in this area.” Pittman is t

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. “Globalization doesn’t quite mean the same thing today that it did 10, 15 years ago,” Willis Sparks told American Farmland Owner. Sparks is the global macro director for the Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk company with offices across the world.   In other words, this isn’t your grandparents’ farmland. Sparks reminds clients these days how increasingly connected the world is…how the geopolitical climate, wars a

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Esther George is not “Debbie Downer,” but she is also not yet convinced that the United States’ economy will smoothly find that “soft landing” that optimistic financial experts have predicted. However, the former president/CEO of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City is also not predicting doom and gloom in 2024. RELATED: Here is some background on the Federal Reserve.   “Any time that you have the kind of aggressiv

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. A president, one of the richest men on the planet, and a global visionary...

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. “What connects us all is somehow the land,” Dr. Bruce Sherrick told American Farmland Owner as he thought about his 35-year career and commitment to maximize the potential of the land and align crop insurance programs with agriculture, economic and environmental policies. BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Bruce Sherrick is the Marjorie and Jerry Fruin Professor of Land Economics and Director of the TIAA Center for Farmland Research

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. James Gallagher is a top Republican legislator in California and a sixth-generation farmer. He is dealing with challenges when it comes to water and walnuts for both occupations. California is part of several initiatives geared toward future sustainability when it comes to water use, food production and transportation. As a Republican, Gallagher would prefer that sustainability efforts be more individually focuse

This interview is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Dave Muth has a diverse background. He was trained as a mechanical engineer. He earned his PhD from Iowa State University, worked in the biofuels industry, has been part of agricultural technology startups and operates a family farm in north central Iowa. RELATED: Check out Dave Muth’s biography here. Dave Muth has spent the past year doing a deep dive into farmland trends leading into 2024 as part of his work l