Howard has served on Berkshire Hathaway’s board since 1993 and has also held senior corporate positions.
Because of the family he was born into, howard’s decision is particularly striking. Warren Buffett spent decades building one of the world’s biggest business empires. His middle son, Howard Graham Buffett, chose a very different path. Rather than following his father into investment and finance, Howard became a farmer and conservationist. For much of his adult life, he has worked with corn and soybeans, farmed in Nebraska and Illinois, and focused on conservation practices designed to protect soil. He has also been involved with research farms studying methods including no-till agriculture and soil health. His father is Warren Buffett, one of the world’s best-known investors and the longtime leader of Berkshire Hathaway. Howard, however, built much of his professional life around farming rather than investment management. That choice also shaped the role his father envisioned for him at Berkshire. Warren Buffett did not plan for Howard to become the conglomerate’s chief executive. Instead, he has long associated his son with a possible future role as non-executive chairman, helping protect Berkshire’s culture without running its day-to-day operations.
In 1986, Warren Buffett bought a 400-acre farm in Nebraska, about 50 miles north of Omaha, for $280,000. Buffett Foundation, the rental arrangement included 5% a year plus either 22% or 26% of the farm’s gross receipts, depending on Howard’s weight. The threshold was 182.5 pounds.
In his own account of the investment, Warren Buffett said his son loved farming and helped him estimate the farm’s expected production and operating costs. According to the Howard G. He bought it from the FDIC after the collapse in Midwestern farmland prices and later rented it to Howard. Howard’s arrangement with his father was anything but a conventional family deal. If Howard was at or below that weight, the percentage was lower. If he went above it, the percentage increased. Howard spoke about the unusual arrangement in a Fortune interview, explaining that his father owned the land and that he paid him a percentage of the farm’s gross income as rent. He also joked about the weight clause, describing it as the “Buffett family version of going to Weight Watchers. The arrangement reflected Warren Buffett’s approach to business.
