Three years. More than 60 guests. Countless conversations about land, agriculture, alternative investments, and the people shaping those industries.

In this final episode of Land & Everything Else, producer Presley Fee turns the microphone around and interviews Dr. Craig Lemoine about the journey behind the podcast. Together, they reflect on how the show evolved from an educational initiative into a platform connecting investors, academics, and industry leaders. They discuss the unexpected opportunities it created, the relationships built along the way, and the lessons learned from hundreds of hours spent exploring the ideas, trends, and people shaping the future of land and alternative investments.

Key takeaways:

• How the podcast evolved from an educational project into a broader industry platform
• Lessons learned from interviewing more than 60 professionals across alternative investment markets
• Why diversification remains the central message of the series
• The role agriculture and farmland can play in sophisticated portfolios
• Lessons on persistence, content creation, and building something that lasts

Connect with us!

• Presley Fee on LinkedIn
• Dr. Craig Lemoine on LinkedIn
• Agriculture Focused Financial Planning
• Land & Everything Else YouTube Channel

What pushes a tenured associate professor of agricultural engineering to "eject from the aircraft" and start a software company? For Kaustubh Bhalerao, it wasn't a singular moment, but a persistent drive to move beyond journal articles and into the field where his work could solve real-world problems for farmers and soil labs.

In this episode, Dr. Craig Lemoine sits down with Dr. Kaustubh Bhalerao, Ph.D. at the Land Expo to discuss his journey from academia to entrepreneurship and how technology is fundamentally reshaping the agricultural landscape. Kaustubh shares a fascinating look at how he uses AI not just as a tool for automation, but as a "second brain" and a thinking partner to build anti-fragile software and defensible business workflows.

Key takeaways:

• How a Jesuit education and academic mentorship shaped Kaustubh’s view of impact.
• The process of building geospatial modeling and digitizing workflows for an underserved ag industry.
• Practical ways to use generative AI for back-office automation and code maintainability.
• How AI tools can help investors better understand their risk appetite and lifestyle goals.
• Why tangible assets and family networks are becoming the ultimate hedges against a volatile labor market.

Connect with us!

• Dr. Kaustubh Bhalerao on LinkedIn
• Soil Diagnostics
• Dr. Craig Lemoine on LinkedIn
• Agriculture Focused Financial Planning
• Land & Everything Else YouTube Channel

Agricultural lending doesn't make headlines the way Wall Street does. But behind every farm mortgage is a system designed to keep capital moving, lenders solvent, and farmers farming. That system nearly broke in the 1980s. Congress responded by creating Farmer Mac, and the market has never been the same.

In this conversation, Dr. Craig Lemoine sits down with Jackson Takach, Chief Economist at Farmer Mac, to trace the arc of agricultural finance from the farm crisis through COVID, the commodity boom, rising interest rates, tariff disruptions, and into a 2026 landscape full of uncertainty and opportunity. Jackson brings two decades of perspective to the conversation and doesn't shy away from what worries him or what excites him about the year ahead.

Key topics:

• What Farmer Mac does and why the secondary market for ag mortgages matters
• How COVID triggered a refinancing boom that saved many farm operations real money
• Why rising interest rates froze land supply and pushed farmland prices higher anyway
• How tariffs hit soybean, cotton, and rice producers hardest and drove up Chapter 12 bankruptcies
• What 2026 looks like across corn, soybeans, biofuels, proteins, and specialty crops
• How farmers are tapping land equity to manage working capital as input costs stay elevated

Connect with us!

• Jackson Takach on LinkedIn
• Farmer Mac

• Dr. Craig Lemoine on LinkedIn
• Agriculture Focused Financial Planning
• Land & Everything Else YouTube Channel