Harry Stine

Stine grew up on a family farm in Dallas County, Iowa. His great-grandparents, William and Sarah Stine, came to Adel from Pennsylvania in the late 1800s to farm; in 1934 his parents, Bill and Roselba Stine, moved to the land that later became Stine Seed Farm.⁠[1][2][3]

In the 1950s Bill Stine founded Stine Seed Farm, cleaning certified oats and public-variety soybean seed with a portable cleaner. Harry Stine began farm work as a small boy; his first job was driving a little B Farmall tractor to pick up straw bales.⁠[2][3]

Stine attended McPherson College in Kansas, his father’s alma mater, graduating in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree; he then took two quarters of graduate work in economics at Iowa State University before returning home to help run the farm.⁠[3][4][5][1]

In 1964 he joined his father’s soybean seed cleaning business.⁠[1][2]

In the mid-1960s, after hearing that the Amsoy variety could be planted at half the usual rate for twice the yield, the family planted twice as many acres. Stine recalled that this was when they “started to get in the seed business.”⁠[3]

After noticing unusual soybean plants in a field, Stine began breeding soybean lines and checking their yields, and learned how varieties are developed from a technician at Iowa State University.⁠[2][3]

In the late 1960s Stine and four other seedsmen formed Improved Variety Research (IVR), one of the first private soybean research and development companies in the United States, with research conducted on the Stine farm near Adel; Stine and plant breeder Bill Eby directed the breeding work there, with Iowa State University professor Walter Fehr as an early partner.⁠[5][2]

After IVR was dissolved, Stine and Bill Eby formed Midwest Oilseeds, a soybean genetics licensing company; in the same period Stine Seed Company began a program to breed high-yielding hybrid seed corn.⁠[2][5]

In 1979 the company began retail soybean seed sales under the Stine Soybean Seeds label.⁠[5][2]

In the early 1980s Stine and Bill Eby created Eden Enterprises as a corn breeding company. Between 1986 and 1989 Stine Seed completed a new headquarters and acquired nine regional seed companies, adding corn, oats and soft red winter wheat; during this period Stine was named Agrimarketer of the Year by the Iowa chapter of the National Agri-Marketing Association and Iowa/Nebraska Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.⁠[2]

By the early 1990s the company had 1,700 dealers in 15 states and sold more than 1 million units of soybean seed, becoming the largest domestic privately owned U.S. seed company and one of the top four U.S. soybean seed sellers.⁠[2][5]

Stine Seed became the first U.S. company to receive a patent on soybean varieties, covering Stine 1570 and Stine 2550; in the same period Stine Biotechnology opened in Ames, Iowa, focusing on a proprietary gene-insertion method.⁠[2]

In 1997 Stine signed a non-exclusive agreement with Monsanto Agricultural Products and Asgrow Seed Company to develop soybean genetics, while also licensing Stine-developed seedstock to other companies; that year Stine’s soybean genetics began to be paired with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready herbicide-tolerance technology, on undisclosed terms.⁠[2][4]

The licensing deals struck with multinational agricultural companies in the 1990s formed the base of Stine’s business; licensees of his soybean and corn genetics have included Monsanto and Syngenta.⁠[6]

In 2002 Stine received an honorary doctorate from McPherson College, and in 2003 he was inducted into the Iowa Business Hall of Fame. That year Stine Biotechnology introduced the Aerosol Beam Injector, a patented system for genetic transformation in plants.⁠[2][5]

On December 7, 2007, Stine received the Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting, on the nomination of the Dallas County Farm Bureau.⁠[5]

In 2004 Stine co-founded M.S. Technologies, L.L.C. The company co-developed and co-owns the Enlist E3 soybean trait with Corteva Agriscience and owns the FG72 trait.⁠[1]

In 2011 Stine converted its corn research to 20-inch rows, and in 2013 it adopted the HP Twin 20 production system. That year its HCEM485 cisgenic glyphosate-tolerance corn trait became the first of its kind deregulated by the USDA, and Stine was named a Top CEO in STEM by STEMconnector.⁠[2]

In 2014 Stine oversaw some 15,000 acres of Iowa farmland; Forbes estimated Stine Seed’s annual sales at more than $1 billion and the company’s value at nearly $3 billion, with its genetics used on about 60% of U.S. soybean acreage.⁠[4]

Stine was then breeding corn for high-density planting of as many as 80,000 plants per acre. He said: “We’re going to be able to double corn yields very easily.”⁠[4]

In 2018 Stine introduced LibertyLink GT27 soybeans, and in 2019 it launched Enlist E3 soybeans. In 2020 Stine became the fourth-largest soybean brand in the United States; in 2023 it expanded into Canada, supplying soybean seed to growers in Ontario, and its U.S. front-line sales team exceeded 300 representatives.⁠[2]

As of October 28, 2026, Forbes estimated the real-time net worth of “Harry Stine & family” at $10.2 billion, giving the residence as Adel, Iowa.⁠[6]

Stine said in 2014: “I’m a data and information and facts person; I’m not a people person.” In 2022 he said: “When we do things differently, we learn if we are on the right path.”⁠[4][3]

He has donated to institutions including McPherson College, Drake University and the senior care facility Spurgeon Manor.⁠[6]

Stine Seed and its affiliates hold more than 800 seed and technology patents, at least 750 of them soybean-related, and have nearly 800 employees and sales agents in 30 states.⁠[2]

Stine Seed: Official website: https://www.stineseed.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]