How Much Money Does The Richest Person In Iowa Make?

How much money does the richest person in Iowa make? Surly more than I'll ever see. But let's find out, shall we?

The Wealth

The richest person in the state of Iowa is a man named Harry Stine. He has an estimated net worth of $4 billion, and he made his fortune in the state's substantial corn and soybean industries.

Corn and soybean industry... Typical Iowa...

Harry Stine made his fortune licensing soybean and corn genetics to Syngenta, Monsanto, and other agribusiness giants. He is Iowa's richest man and owns nearly 15,000 acres of land in Iowa through his private ownership of Stine Seed. Harry Stine is Iowa's largest landowner.

Stine's Company

For more than 40 years, Stine has been providing corn and soybean growers with the best genetics available in the industry.

The Stine Seed Company was originally founded in the 1950s by Stine's father as Stine Seed Farm. Today Stine owns hundreds of patents in soybean and corn genetics and does over $1 billion in sales annually.

Stines Current Life in Iowa

Stine resides with his family in Adel, where his grandparents first moved in the late 1800s and he owns a small home down the road from the Stine Seeds headquarters in Adel.

Apparently, Stine is an avid table tennis player and enjoys hunting morel mushrooms.

Stine Growing Up

Stine was raised in Dallas County, Iowa. He graduated from Central Dallas High School and then McPherson College in Kansas.

In 1964, he joined his father's soybean cleaning business in Adel, Iowa.

Harry became interested in soybean breeding after finding some unusual soybean plants in a farm field and went on to form Stine Seed Farms.

Harry loved to farm but also recognized additional profit opportunities by developing newer, higher-yielding soybean lines. He began breeding and “yield checking” soybean lines (previously only done by universities), and he came to understand (while actually weighing varieties himself) what a conventional breeding program could bring to the soybean industry.

Read The Timeline of Stine History Here

Here I thought the richest person in Iowa was gonna be some big far-out celebrity who does crazy stuff, like Hugh Hefner… I guess I was wrong... it's a man who breeds corn. I wonder who the richest person in Illinois is...

Read More about Stine Here