Dave is the founder of Farmland Equity Partners LLC and is responsible for all the activities of the company. The idea for Farmland Equity Partners LLC extends back to 1997 when Dave founded the Little Grant Farms LLC (LGF). This company was formed after carefully researching several areas and many different properties with the goal of finding a high quality mixed use property. Communities were identified where land prices were depressed due to local issues.
The Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin has land which has open pastures, row crop farming, timber and recreational opportunities. In spite of these advantages, the partners’ research led them to believe that the prevailing land market was being overshadowed by the difficulties that the area’s dairy industry was facing at that time.
Income in the early years was generated solely from rental income. In subsequent years this rental income has been substituted for a flex lease crop share arrangement and income has been augmented through timber and small acreage sales. To manage the price risk of the crop share lease LGF relies on Dave’s 25 years as a professional commodity options trader. LGF uses hedge to arrive and cash commodity contracts as well as futures and options to lock in crop share prices. The experiences gained from the management of this company over the last 19 years will be beneficial to Farmland Equity Partners LLC.
Dave has been a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for 25 years. Since 2001 he was a market maker in agriculture futures and options for his own account. From 1987 to 2001 he was a proprietary trader for Prime International Trading. His responsibilities include daily position reconciliation, risk/reward analysis and trading implementation.
Dave grew up on a 5500 acre corn and soybean farm in northeast Iowa and assisted with hedging activities. He graduated from Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, with a BA in Economics. Dave also worked for Miller-Tabak as an equity option arbitrage trader from 1986 to 1987.