In 1986, Warren Buffett bought from the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) a 400-acre property, about 162 hectares, located roughly 80 kilometers north of Omaha, Nebraska. He paid $280,000, well below what a bankrupt bank had lent on that land a few years earlier, and Buffett’s farm wound up becoming an example he himself cites when talking about investing.
Who explained how much that land could yield was his son Howard G. Buffett, who since September 18, 2026 has chaired the Berkshire Hathaway board. Howard has decades of experience cultivating corn and soybeans and advocating no-till farming, a way of planting without plowing designed to keep the soil from blowing away with the wind and rain.
A Purchase Made Without Knowledge of Agriculture
Buffett recounted the operation in his 2013 letter to shareholders. “I knew nothing about how to run a farm. But I have a son who loves agriculture, and I learned from him how many bushels of corn and soybeans the farm would produce and what the costs would be,” he wrote.
A bushel is a volume measure for grain, which for corn equates to about 25 kilograms. With those figures, he calculated a return of roughly 10%, and 28 years later the farm had tripled its profits and was worth five times or more than what he paid for it. “I still know nothing about farming, and recently I’ve only made my second visit to the farm,” he added.
A Lease That Depended on Howard’s Weight
The farm was not a gift. According to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, cited by The Times of India, the son’s rent included an annual 5% plus 22% or 26% of the farm’s gross income, depending on his weight, with a cap at 182.5 pounds, about 82.8 kilograms.
In an interview with Fortune reported by the same newspaper, Howard described it as “the Buffett family version of Weight Watchers.”
Why Howard Buffett Does Not Till His Fields
In no-till farming the land is not tilled before planting and the residues of the previous harvest remain on the field. According to the USDA Climate Hubs, those residues prevent erosion by wind and water, and over time they improve water retention and soil health.
In a PBS NewsHour report aired in May 2016, in one of his Illinois fields, Howard explained to journalist Judy Woodruff: “In this field, we’re not doing any tillage, zero.” When she asked why, he replied: “Because it helps grow soil health. You save on fuel because you only pass through this field once, instead of maybe three or four times.”
Then he showed her the worms in that soil. “Any gardener will tell you. Worms are the best thing you can have,” he explained.
In 2015, at the Borlaug Dialogue symposium in Des Moines (Iowa), he sparked a debate about no-till with a remark captured by Farm Progress: “The greatest asset farmers have is beneath their feet: their soil. People think they are taking care of it, but they aren’t.” It is the same idea behind conservation agriculture that can help prevent erosion from rainfall.
The Grandson Who Led the Nebraska Farm
In 2014, the man who worked the Nebraska farm daily, near Tekamah, was the grandson, Howard Warren Buffett, according to a report by Steve Jordon in the Omaha World-Herald that Norfolk Daily News republished. He was about to begin his third full year at the helm, and the 2013 corn harvest had reached 230 bushels per acre, about 14.4 tonnes per hectare.
Warren remained the landowner and collected a rent agreed with Howard G., the machinery owner, while the grandson paid for the fuel, rented the equipment from his father, and ran the operation.
With a USDA conservation program contract, the grandson sowed radishes from an aircraft between the corn rows. These are cover crops that protect the soil: their roots break up the soil and reduce runoff, and when they die from frost they contribute nutrients.
The grandson claimed that cover crops, no-till, and irrigation management had raised corn yields by 11% and soybean yields by 25% since his arrival. Yet he admitted that “you cannot control Mother Nature.”
Robert Myers, regional director of University of Missouri extension programs, summarized it thus: “He is clearly experimenting on his farm, even though he grows corn and soy.”
Farm-Scale Trials in Illinois
According to The Times of India, Howard G. Buffett also runs a farm of about 1,500 acres, roughly 607 hectares, in Pana (Illinois). “I consider myself, above all, a farmer,” he writes in the introduction to the foundation’s report on conservation agriculture, where he says he has been farming in Nebraska, Illinois and Arizona for almost 40 years.
The trials began in 2014 in central Illinois, spanning nearly 5,000 acres, about 2,000 hectares, spread across 12 fields with a rotation of corn and soybean crops and continuous corn. In each field the plots were side by side and the only variable was whether they were tilled or not.
From 2014 to 2017, no-till yielded $0.55 more per acre than traditional tillage in corn, roughly $1.40 more per hectare, and $13.55 more per acre in soybeans, about $33.50 per hectare. According to the report, yields were similar and the advantage stemmed mainly from savings on field operations.
From the Farm to the Berkshire Hathaway Presidency
On September 18, 2026, Berkshire Hathaway announced in a statement that Warren Buffett would become chairman emeritus and remain on the board, and that Howard, a director since 1993, was elected chairman. Greg Abel remains as chief executive officer.
“The culture Warren built and the values he defended will stay at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be its guardian,” Abel said on behalf of the board. In his own way, Buffett explained in his shareholder letter: “Greg runs the company; Howard will protect its culture and its values, both more valuable than anything on our balance sheet.”
Howard has chaired since 1999 the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, focused on global food security and conflict mitigation.
What the Buffett Experience Does Not Prove
The foundation itself warns of the limits of its data. “We will not reach the standards of an academic publication, nor do we attempt to,” Howard writes in the report.
In corn, the profitability difference was minimal, and in both corn and soy the germination rate was slightly lower with no-till, though yields did not drop. They are 12 fields in a single region, which does not guarantee the same balance with a different climate or soil.
The USDA also notes that no-till soil can heat up and dry more slowly in spring and delay planting, that specialized planters are expensive, and that herbicide use is often higher.
In Nebraska, the 2013 corn was planted late due to a wet spring, and the radishes, which the contract obliged to plant before August 31, ended up shadowed by the corn, which slowed their germination and growth. “This is also a learning experience for the USDA,” Myers said, for whom the program might require more flexible planting deadlines.
For the FAO, abandoning tillage is only one of three tenets of conservation agriculture, along with covering at least 30% of the soil and rotating at least three crops, and the matter weighs because soil erosion threatens the planet.
Howard, for his part, had already stated his recipe in Des Moines: “Many people say they tried no-till for a year and it didn’t work. To me, that’s like saying I tried marriage for a year and it didn’t work. Nothing in farming works in a year.”
Photo: USDA / Lance Cheung
