In 1871, his great-grandparents, William and Sarah Stine arrived in Adel, Iowa, from Pennsylvania, and established a 160-acre farm there.
In 1894, his grandfather Ira Cloyd Stine married Lydia Sheaffer and they had had four children, all sons.
[4][5] He made his fortune licensing soybean and corn genetics to Syngenta, Monsanto, and other agribusiness giants.
[8][9][10][11] Owning nearly 15,000 acres of land in Iowa through his private ownership of Stine Seed,[12] In 2018, he was listed as the wealthiest in Iowa with a net worth of $3.2 billion by Forbes.
[14][15] As a registered Republican, he did not support Donald Trump during 2020 elections but favored Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses.