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Over the last year, Peoples Co. President Steve Bruere has been a frequent flyer on United Airlines with a two-way ticket to Washington state.
We’ll get past the airline first, which Bruere and a group of investors claim was responsible for the death last year of a super-sized rabbit named Simon that the group saw as a potential blue-ribbon bunny at the Iowa State Fair.
The rabbit incident occurred while Bruere was on a separate United flight to Washington — the town of Touchet in the Walla Walla American Viticulture Area, more particularly, where he was chosen to represent a family that wanted to sell 6,000 acres of wheat ground for its next stage of agriculture development.
The successful bidder in a private auction was announced earlier this month, capping a yearlong experience that has changed some of Bruere’s views about Iowa agriculture and land management. It also has left him to wonder whether United officials ever connected him with the rabbit.
“The irony is that every time I flew to Washington I was on a United flight and thought, ‘Wait until they figure out that I’m the guy with the rabbit,’ ” he said.
The rabbit is another story. Right now, the Washington experience has Bruere thinking about diversification of Iowa agriculture.
“We’re growing a commodity on fertile land with an abundance of water,” he said. “Yet they grow 90 crops (in a water-challenged climate) that are of higher values. I’m not convinced they can grow a better potato in Washington than we can grow in Iowa.”
Bruere grew up on a farm in Warren County. He joined Peoples Co. in 2003 when it was the farm management arm of Peoples Bank in Indianola. The company was spun off as a farm real estate company and, fresh out of the University of Northern Iowa, Bruere was named president.
The focus was the sale and management of farmland. Over the years, the company has sprouted multiple divisions and Bruere also has become involved in development and residential real estate.
In 2008, he launched the Iowa Land Expo, a one-day event that draws bankers, developers, farmers, land brokers, economists and investment managers to Greater Des Moines. President Donald Trump’s first trip to Iowa was to visit the expo shortly before announcing his campaign for the nation’s highest office.
A couple of years ago, the Weidert family of Oregon attended. They planned to sell their large farm in the Walla Walla AVA and wanted to invest the proceeds in Iowa farmland. They turned to Bruere for advice.
At first he was happy to locate Iowa farm ground; that’s his specialty, after all. Selling land in Washington, where “I had never stepped foot,” was not.
He gave the Weiderts the names of national firms that could market the property. They returned to the Land Expo last year and told Bruere they wanted him to sell the land.
That resulted in crash courses on northwest agriculture — though Walla Walla is noted for its world-class vineyards and wineries, its first claim to fame was as the birthplace of the sweet onion in the early 1900s — and on water rights, irrigation, the effects of thermal flows on grape production. The list goes on.
“I had never sold a permanent crop property,” he said. “I pretty much lived in Washington. I attended apple and wine conferences, got to know the players in the industries.”
He established relationships with national publications that specialized in wines, vineyards, any crops that were grown in the northwest but were little more than menu items to Bruere.
“It’s not like a farm in Iowa and you have four neighbors and you have to figure out whether they are willing to fight over it,” Bruere said.
Peoples Co. needed to get a brokerage license in Washington state and Bruere needed a real estate license. The company is licensed to sell real estate in 19 states.
On one of his first trips to the state, he encountered a truckload of carrots, then a truckload of onions. “I fell in love with the place,” he said.
Last year, the Weidert family converted much of its wheatland to mustard, then tilled it into the soil to act as a natural fumigant for potential buyers.
The state is the nation’s top producer of hops, blueberries and apples and the No. 2 producer of wine grapes.
In Iowa, Bruere has been focused on corn and soybeans. He doesn’t have an apple tree in the backyard, but he has invested in a hops operation near Solon. This year, he plans to plant potatoes on one of his Iowa farms.
Still, Washington agriculture has triggered his imagination. California-based Farmland LP was the successful bidder for the Weidert farm. The company specializes in converting traditional farms to organic operations. The price has not been disclosed pending closing.
On the Walla Walla farm, among the crops Farmland plans to plant are apples, hops and blueberries, as well as a vineyard.
Craig Wichner of Farmland LP will lead one of the breakout sessions at the Land Expo, which is Friday at the Sheraton West Des Moines Hotel. The event is a sellout, with about 665 people expected to attend.
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