Annual Meeting

Mark Edelman

Mark lives in Boone, Iowa with his wife, Nancy. Mark grew up on a farm in Northeast Kansas, farmed his way through college, and continues his Century Farm ownership interest. He has BS & MS degrees in Ag Economics from Kansas State University and PhD from Purdue University. Areas of specialization include ag policy, international trade, farm finance, rural economic development, rural capital markets, and ag entrepreneurship. He has served on boards for Land O'Lakes, Inc., 1985-89; Rural Policy Research Institute, 1990-96; Boone City Council, 1993-97; SunAM Development LC (family-owned housing development), 1996-2021; Amaizing Energy LLC, 2007-2014 (Denison ethanol company sold to the Andersons); and two nonprofits (Iowa Microloan and Iowa Community Capital), 2008-present. He has served on the Ag Ventures Alliance Board since 2016 and has been a member of Countryside Angels since its formation. Mark is Professor Emeritus at Iowa State University. He served as ISU Rural Vitality Center Director 2000-2020 and as an Extension agricultural policy economist since 1986. He is a Round Table Fellow for Farm Foundation based in Chicago, and a founding Board Member for the Barry Flinchbaugh Center for Agriculture and Food Policy located at Kansas State University.

Jill Euken

Jill and her husband Randy farm south of Atlantic, IA. Jill graduated from Atlantic High School and earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from ISU. She retired from ISU in 2019, after serving 39 years in a variety of extension and university outreach roles, most recently as Deputy Director of the ISU Bioeconomy Institute. Jill was elected to the Board of Directors of Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy (SIRE) in 2019 and continues to serve on the Board. Jill and Randy, along with their daughter Michelle and son-in-law Steve, annually raise 2300 acres of corn and soybeans; and own and manage cow-calf and beef feedlot operations. Their son Bret, daughter-in-law Katie and grandchildren Mollie, Claire, Luke and Leah live and work in Chaska, MN. Jill and Randy were founding members of Iowa Quality Producers Alliance (IQPA) in SW Iowa in 2003.  IQPA had a similar history and goals to AgVA; and many of its members have joined AgVA. Jill was appointed to the AgVA board in 2019 to fulfill the term of Dave Denne who passed away unexpectedly. She is committed to working with AgVA members and staff to find investments that add to the bottom line of farmers and is especially passionate about finding opportunities for millennials who are in the early years of their careers in agriculture. She has served as Chair of the AgVA Business Development Committee since 2022. 

Chad Krull

Chad is a native of Northwood and currently resides there with his wife Allyson and two children- Kendall 11, and Evan 8. Chad grew up raising corn and soybeans on a family farm just outside of Northwood. After high school, he attended Northland Tech for aviation maintenance and graduated with an A&P license (Airframe & Powerplant). Chad worked for the City of Ames as a transit bus mechanic for a year before being promoted to Maintenance Coordinator, a position which he held for seven years before enrolling at Iowa State University to obtain his Bachelor's in Ag Studies with an emphasis in Agronomy. In 2013, Chad and Allyson started their family and moved back to Northwood where Chad began farming full-time.

Chad joined Ag Ventures after learning about them in 2020. He enjoys testing products to find the correct rates and applications for each product. Chad typically has 10-20 replicated strip trials, some independent and many through private companies, as well as ag groups looking for replicated data. Chad has strip-tilled and no tilled since he started farming and has transitioned all acres to the practice. Using strip-till and controlled traffic easily allows for replicated strip trials, over multiple years, in some tests.

Chad is excited to see new products and ideas come to the agriculture industry. There is a large need to vet and test the many products and ideas to find the true ROI. It is an exciting time to see continuous innovation in ag production and the impact that AVA has on farmers' profitability as they invest in these new technologies.

Luke McCabe

Luke graduated from Lanesboro High School. He also graduated from Winona State University with a bachelor's degree in Accounting. Luke joined AgVA in 2018 after attending a Stover Ventures informational meeting. Luke is currently a Tax Manager at Hawkins Ash CPAs in Rochester/St Charles, MN. He also was just newly elected to county committee board for Fillmore County USDA office. He also grows corn, beans, hay and raises cattle with his father. He only works at Hawkins and Ash during the tax season. He finds this works well with farming as tax season is during the winter months.  Luke was elected to the AgVA Board of Directors in 2019 and was appointed to the Business Development Committee and Audit Committee that same year. In 2023, Luke was elected to the Treasurer position on the AgVA Board of Directors. He has also been a participant in the farm trial program.

Joe Rowe

Joe lives between Manly & Plymouth with his wife Pam (Mercy DPT) and sons Adler, Cohen, & Griffen. He grew up on a diversified sharecrop farm west of Osage that his dad stopped farming in 1997 when he graduated high school. From Iowa State University Joe earned an Ag Studies Bachelor Degree with a minor in Ag Systems Technologies in 3.5 years. 

He spent time on a commercial water well drilling rig and designing / selling Morton Buildings before returning to northern Iowa in 2004. Joe started working for Iowa Ethanol in Hanlontown, with positions in operations, supervision, Environmental Health & Safety and currently holds the position of Grain Merchandiser since 2012. He started grain farming in 2008 from scratch by New Haven and has since stitched back together undivided 1/8's to make it whole again, in addition to adding a few more acres over the years. Joe is a firm believer in the power and profit potential of regenerative agriculture, and converted to strip till, no till, and cover crops starting in 2015. He has served 13 years with the Plymouth Fire & Rescue, achieving a unheard of class 5 water haul certified insurance rating. Joe served as Fire Chief and EMS Service Director until 2018. Joe was also re-elected and is serving his 2nd term as a Central Springs School Board member. He has set up and incorporated two local 501c3 non-profits. Joe has been an AgVA member since 2019, and is a member of Countryside Angels, AgLaunch Farmers LLC and has participated in multiple field trials. He has yet to find a piece of farm equipment that did not require modification in some manner.

Joe believes AgVA's mission aligns with his own - to show that farm innovation combined with traditional values represents what's best about rural America and the future for Agriculture is bright & filled with opportunity for his own sons as well.

Sterling Young

Sterling and his wife, Vicki, live in Clear Lake, IA. They have 3 married children and 7 grandchildren. For fifty-years Sterling was a farm manager and farm real estate broker associate with Hertz Farm Management, Inc. primarily in their Mason City, IA office. He represented Hertz during the formation of Ag Ventures and has served as a board member since that time. Sterling was on the AgVA grain processing committee that founded Midwest Grain Processors in the early 2000's. He has served on the AgVA Auditing, Nominating, and Investment subcommittees. He believes that the future of our members and their communities will be greatly served by Ag Ventures' continuing efforts to generate successful Agricultural innovations.