Peoples Company hosted its 13th annual Land Investment Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 14, 2020. The event brought together farmers, bankers, and investors for a program connecting trade and sustainability with farm finance, tax planning, land investment, and emerging changes in agriculture.
Who attended and what the expo covered
Agriculture.com’s January 18, 2020 recap describes an audience of farmers, bankers, and investors. The agenda ranged beyond buying and selling land: it addressed the market forces affecting farm income, financial decisions facing landowners and agricultural businesses, and innovations that could reshape food and farming.
The sessions can be understood in four practical strands: market access and farm-economy outlook; land, tax, and finance decisions; sustainability and standards; and developing technologies and food systems. The recap does not say that the expo formally ranked or compared these areas.
Trade and the farm-economy outlook
Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill linked the scale of Iowa corn production to the importance of exports. Agriculture.com reported Hill saying, “We have led the nation in corn production for 26 straight years,” and, “We rely on foreign market access to move this massive amount of production that the world most desperately needs.” The 26-year figure is Hill’s remark at the event, not a current or independently verified production statistic.
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USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Administrator Ken Isley followed Hill and discussed sustainability. Together, their remarks connected agricultural trade to the conditions under which production and market access are sustained—issues relevant to farm businesses as well as landowners whose returns depend on the wider agricultural economy.
Jim Knuth, senior vice president at Farm Credit Services of America, offered a farm-finance perspective, telling attendees, “We are guardedly optimistic as we look forward.” That was an outlook expressed at the January 2020 conference, not a forecast for current farm finances.
Sustainability, ideas, and agricultural standards
Sustainability appeared in more than one part of the program. Isley addressed it in the context of agricultural trade, while communications strategist Vance Crowe considered how ideas move into the mainstream in a talk titled “The Edge of Chaos: Where and How Society Changes.” The recap quotes Crowe: “the one who controls the definitions, controls the argument.” His session placed sustainability debates in a broader discussion of how public ideas and definitions take hold.
Leading Harvest, an organization focused on agricultural sustainability standards, reportedly debuted at the expo in January 2020, according to a contemporaneous Global AgInvesting article. A later Peoples Company year-in-review described the company’s work on sustainability standards and its participation in Leading Harvest; that historical account does not establish the program’s current availability or status.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesLand, farm finance, and tax decisions
The agenda included land and farm finance, as well as afternoon information on 1031 exchanges from David Brown and Becky Petersen of IPE Exchange. A 1031 exchange can defer recognition of gain when qualifying investment or business real property is exchanged under applicable tax rules, but eligibility and timing requirements matter. A conference session is not a substitute for advice on a particular transaction.
Paul Neiffer, a certified public accountant and adviser at CLA, presented on income- and estate-tax strategies, according to a contemporaneous Successful Farming report. Those remarks reflected the rules and circumstances of 2020. Tax law changes, and landowners should not treat figures or strategies discussed then as current guidance without consulting a qualified tax professional.
Innovation, food, and technology on the agenda
Other sessions addressed hemp, plant-based food, genetics, and technology’s future effects on agriculture. These topics widened the discussion from land as an asset to the businesses and systems that influence how agricultural land is used, what it produces, and how markets may evolve. The event recap lists these subjects but does not establish particular forecasts, investment recommendations, or outcomes for any one technology or crop.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Historical perspective and the closing speaker
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian Jon Meacham spoke about bringing historical context to political conversation. Agriculture.com reported him saying, “If we talk about our politics in historical terms, we raise the chances that we can actually have an illuminating, as opposed to an infuriating conversation.” Anthony Scaramucci was another prominent speaker and closed the program.
Quick Recap
Sources and context
- Agriculture.com’s January 18, 2020 event recap reports the expo date, audience, speakers, themes, and quoted remarks.
- The event recap is the source for the sessions on trade, sustainability, finance, exchanges, hemp, food, genetics, and technology.
- Global AgInvesting’s contemporaneous article reports Leading Harvest’s January 2020 debut at the expo.
- Peoples Company’s 2021 year-in-review provides later historical context on the company’s sustainability-standard work and Leading Harvest involvement.
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