9 Best Agribusiness & Food Processing M&A Advisors in 2026

9 Best Agribusiness & Food Processing M&A Advisors in 2026

Last updated: September 2026 · Last verified: September 2026

TL;DR. "Agribusiness M&A" is three markets priced three ways, the Three-Denominator Ag Market. Inputs and equipment dealers price with the inventory outside the deal: Titan Machinery paid $13.4M including real estate for a South Dakota New Holland store on May 15, 2025 and bought $7.0M of inventory separately under CNH floorplan, outside the purchase accounting (Titan Machinery 10-K, March 31, 2026). Processing prices on capacity: Green Plains sold a 120 million gallon ethanol plant for $190M, about $1.42-$1.58 a gallon of nameplate, our calculation (Green Plains 8-K, September 26, 2025), and The Andersons realised $35M of 45Z credits in 2025 on 405 million gallons, about $0.086 a gallon, our calculation, while the 45Z regulations remain proposed (91 FR 5160, February 4, 2026). Co-packing and ingredients price on EBITDA at a discount to brands: branded 11.6x versus a two-company private-label index at 7.6x (Capstone Partners, April 2026). Ranked on adviser-of-record evidence: Ascendant Partners, Verdant Partners, Piper Sandler, Lincoln International, Cascadia Capital, Capstone Partners, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs and Rabo Securities. I run Peony, a data room used by 6,800+ customers, the room the process runs in, not an adviser.

Why is "agribusiness" three M&A markets priced three different ways?

Because an ag retailer, a grain or ethanol processor and a food co-packer are priced in three denominators, sold to three buyer sets and advised by three benches that barely overlap. I'm Sean Yu, co-founder of Peony, a data room company used by 6,800+ customers. I work on the layer that decides who may read a confidential document. This guide is for one owner in three situations: an ag-input retailer or equipment dealer at $20M-$300M of revenue whose dealer agreement gives the manufacturer consent rights over the sale; a grain, feed, ethanol or protein processor priced on capacity with biofuel policy inside the valuation; and a food or ingredient co-packer priced on EBITDA with customer concentration as the live risk. An agtech founder weighing a strategic exit against a Series A gets an answer at the end.

An agribusiness M&A advisor is an investment bank or boutique that runs the sale, recapitalization or capital raise of a farm-input, processing or food-manufacturing business on the owner's behalf: the OEM consent package in the dealer lane, a capacity build and credit-eligibility file in the processing lane, a customer-concentration story in the co-pack lane. For the label distinctions see M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank; this post sits under the best M&A advisors hub. Branded consumer food is not this hub. Brands are in our consumer products M&A advisors bench; where a firm runs both, I quote only its processing coverage. Investor lists live in our agriculture and agtech investors and food investors directories.

I built the bench on one standard, the Adviser-of-Record Ledger, a Peony-original evidence standard: a firm earns a rank only if I could find a dated agribusiness adviser-of-record credit in a primary source, an SEC filing, a counterparty's release or the firm's own dated tombstone. The grain-belt city benches sit alongside: Des Moines M&A advisors and Omaha M&A advisors. Buyers should start with how to acquire a company.

Which advisers actually closed the agribusiness and food processing deals on the tape, 2022-26?

The pattern is the opposite of what a seller expects: the buyer's bank gets named and the seller's does not. The ledger is every agribusiness or food-processing transaction where I could read the adviser roster in a primary document.

Bottom line: of the eight M&A and capital-raise rows, four name no adviser at all, two name only the buyer's bank, and the two that name the seller's adviser are a farmer co-op and an LLC issuer. Call it the Buy-Side Naming Bias, a Peony-original finding: the acquirer's bank appears in the 8-K and the seller's boutique does not, so a bench built from press-release credits over-weights the bulge banks and under-weights the firms that actually sell family businesses.

The two SEC-filed U.S. ethanol transactions of 2025 I could verify were done without a named adviser of record, and so were every Titan Machinery dealership purchase and Post's $880M buy-in; a list that says a firm "advised on" one of those without a filing behind it is asserting, not reporting. One protein item is pending inside this hub and names no adviser yet: JBS's August 18, 2026 non-binding all-stock proposal for the roughly 18% of Pilgrim's Pride it does not own, at 2.086 JBS shares per share, with no guarantee of a binding agreement (JBS 8-K, August 19, 2026); it enters the ledger only when a definitive agreement names the banks. One branded item is pending outside this hub and belongs to our consumer products M&A advisors bench: McCormick's purchase of Unilever's food business, announced March 2026, whose $44.8B and 13.8x in Capstone's April 2026 report are Capstone's figures, not McCormick's.

Will my business be priced on EBITDA, on capacity, or with the inventory outside the deal?

On EBITDA only if you are a co-packer or ingredient maker; on capacity if you process; with the inventory outside the deal if you sell equipment. That is the Three-Denominator Ag Market, a Peony-original frame: the three sub-markets quote "a multiple" and mean three different things.

What are ag inputs and equipment dealers selling for in 2026?

Inputs at a revenue premium and an EBITDA discount to the rest of agriculture, and dealers at a headline that understates the capital by half. Capstone Partners' October 2025 agri-inputs report puts sector M&A at 2.3x EV/Revenue and 10.6x EV/EBITDA from 2019 to August 26, 2025, against 1.8x and 11.2x for the broader agriculture industry, because "rising production costs have subdued margins": buyers pay up for the top line and mark down the earnings. The one named input deal with a published multiple is TriCal Soil Solutions' purchase of the TELONE soil-fumigation line from Dow, $121M enterprise value and 10.0x EV/EBITDA, May 2025, with Dow keeping the plant and manufacturing for TriCal under a lease.

Dealers have no published multiple, and the reason is in Titan Machinery's 10-K: its Farmers Implement purchase was $13.4M including real estate, after which it acquired the store's equipment and parts inventory from CNH and other manufacturers, recognising $7.0M of inventory and a matching floorplan liability that "are not included as part of the accounting for the business combination." The Headline-Understates-Capital Rule, a Peony-original observation: capital deployed was $20.4M, 52% above the stated price, our calculation, and no firm publishes a quarterly ag-dealer multiple table.

What is an ethanol plant worth per gallon of capacity, and what does 45Z add?

About $1.5 a gallon of nameplate on the two 2025 filings, with a 45Z credit worth roughly $0.086 a gallon on top, and both numbers carry a denominator you must name. Green Plains' Obion plant: $190M cash including an estimated $20M of working capital, 120 million gallons of nameplate and 8.2 million bushels of storage, closed September 25, 2025, which is $1.58 a gallon gross or $1.42 net of the working-capital estimate, our calculation from the filing, an upper bound because the storage is bundled. The Andersons: $425.0M including $40.0M of working capital for the 49.9% of four plants it did not own, closed July 31, 2025, implying $851.7M for 100%. Its 8-K calls the fleet 500 million gallons of production capacity; its FY2025 10-K says 405 million gallons of nameplate. The same filing set therefore gives $2.10 a gallon on nameplate and $1.70 on production, or $1.90 and $1.54 net of working capital, our calculation; call it the Two-Denominator Trap, a 23% swing on a minority buy-in whose equity price leaves the entity's debt outside it.

The Andersons "were able to qualify for and realize $35 million of Section 45Z clean fuel production tax credits in 2025", about $0.086 a gallon of nameplate, our calculation, in a year its board crush improved $0.02 a gallon: the credit was worth roughly four times the year's crush improvement. Its rules are not settled: the implementing regulations are a proposed rule (91 FR 5160, February 4, 2026), the credit runs to fuel sold by December 31, 2029 under section 70521 of the OBBBA, and indirect land use change is excluded from the emissions rate for fuel produced after December 31, 2025. A plant is a capacity price plus a policy option, and a buyer prices the option separately.

How are grain elevators and protein processors priced?

Elevators on a control price with no published per-bushel benchmark, protein on a public median of 8.6x with one artefact to exclude. The Andersons agreed on November 1, 2024 to buy 65% of Skyland Grain for $85.0M, an implied $130.8M for 100%, our calculation; the acquired bushel capacity is not disclosed, so I publish no dollars-per-bushel figure. The same filer's grain storage capacity fell from about 291 million bushels at the end of 2024 to about 271 million at the end of 2025, a 6.9% decline, after a Sunray, Texas terminal incident and "the closing of several smaller underperforming grain locations": a buyer of elevator networks was simultaneously closing elevators.

Protein prices on EBITDA with a cycle inside it. Capstone's April 2026 table, priced March 3, 2026, puts Protein Processing at a median 8.6x EV/LTM EBITDA on a 7.7% margin, Tyson at 11.3x and Pilgrim's Pride at 5.6x, with Cal-Maine at 2.0x on a 37.1% margin, an egg-cycle artefact. The co-op layer sits above all of it: CHS Inc., the nation's largest integrated agricultural cooperative, earned $90.8M of operating earnings and $569.7M of equity income from investments in fiscal 2025, 6.3 times as much from stakes in other businesses as from running its own, our calculation, on revenue down 9.7% and ethanol volume down 20.5%. Call it the Equity-Income Tell: in agribusiness the JV and minority-stake documents are a first-order diligence item.

What EBITDA multiple do food co-packers and ingredient makers sell for in 2026?

Ingredients near 12.5x, private label near 7.6x, and nothing published for pure contract manufacturing. Capstone's April 2026 public medians, priced March 3, 2026, on the three rows that price this hub: Ingredients & Flavors 12.5x, Protein Processing 8.6x and Private Label Foods 7.6x, against Branded Processed Foods at 11.6x as the reference a co-packer is discounted from; the full nine-segment table, snacks to baked goods, sits in our consumer products M&A advisors bench. The branded-versus-private-label gap is 4.0 turns, private label at 65.5% of the branded multiple, our calculation, and it carries a trap: the private-label index has two constituents, Lamb Weston at 8.4x and Seneca Foods at 6.8x, neither a contract manufacturer.

The deal tape: food-sector M&A averaged 15.4x EV/EBITDA in 2023, 12.3x in 2025 and 12.7x year to date at March 3, 2026, on 191 deals in 2025 and 40 in the first nine weeks of 2026 against 24 a year earlier. Upstream is buying scale; downstream is selling focus. Post's 8th Avenue buy-in shows what leverage does to a private-brands platform when multiples compress: an $880M net payment that went to term loans, a revolver, $111.0M of finance leases and an 11% preferred, with no cash consideration to the common stock. Do not compute a multiple from it; the filing discloses no EBITDA.

How does the OEM consent gate work when I sell a farm equipment dealership?

The manufacturer decides whether your buyer becomes a dealer, and the only version of that power on the public record is stated in CNH's terms as "sole discretion." Titan Machinery's 10-K, verbatim: "The acquisition of additional CNH geographic areas of responsibility and store locations … requires the consent of CNH under our CNH Dealer Agreements. CNH may decline, in its sole discretion, to consent to any acquisition of an additional CNH store location we may pursue." And on the seller's side: "In the event of a proposed divestiture of a store location, CNH has significant influence on the purchaser given that it retains discretion whether or not to grant a dealer agreement." Call it the CNH Consent Gate, the ag mirror of the OEM gate in our automotive M&A advisors guide, with one difference: California's vehicle code gives a car manufacturer 60 days and forbids unreasonable refusal, and the filing I read describes no clock and no reasonableness standard for a farm-equipment dealer. I have only CNH's terms, not Deere's; whether your state's dealer statute supplies a clock is a question for counsel.

The gate explains why this sub-market has no public adviser bench. Titan has completed over 60 acquisitions since January 1, 2003 across 15 U.S. states, four European countries and three Australian states, and no filing I read names a financial adviser on any of them; an asset purchase of "the working capital and fixed assets that we believe are necessary to run an efficient store," gated on OEM consent, is not a securities transaction, so BrokerCheck is empty by design. The bench is thin, and this is why: the only firm here that even publishes Machinery & Equipment as an ag sub-sector is Capstone Partners. Hire on consent-package experience, not on a listing.

Who are the 9 agribusiness and food processing M&A advisors on this bench, and how are they ranked?

By agribusiness adviser-of-record evidence first and by relevance to an owner-seller second: a counterparty's SEC filing outranks the firm's own dated tombstones, which outrank undated tombstones, which outrank research without deals; a buy-side credit ranks below a published practice with named deals. Positions 7, 8 and 9 are large banks on one filed credit each; below roughly $500M of enterprise value they are the bank across the table, not your hire.

1. Ascendant Partners: the only firm on this bench named by full legal name in a NASDAQ acquirer's filing

Ascendant Partners, Centennial, Colorado, "dedicated to helping agribusiness, renewable fuel, and food companies," began advising middle-market agribusinesses in 2005, founded by Mark Warren after he served as a founding principal at Business Advisory Services for CoBank. The Andersons' November 6, 2024 8-K states: "Skyland was advised on the transaction by Ascendant Partners, LLC and FTI Consulting, Inc."; South Dakota Soybean Processors' February 9, 2022 8-K states it "has engaged Ascendant Partners to lead and manage the capital raising process" for the Mitchell, South Dakota crush plant that in 2023 broke ground as a bp and High Plains Partners joint venture. Its name also appears in Advanced BioEnergy, NEDAK Ethanol and Blackhawk Biofuels filings from 2006 to 2019, roles I did not read. Registration: "a member of FINRA and SIPC," as Ascendant Financial Partners, LLC. Two weaknesses: its site says "over $5 billion of closed transactions" on one page and "$4+ billion" on another, and it publishes no research. Verdict: first call for a grain, feed or ethanol seller, and the only boutique with an SEC-filed agribusiness sell-side credit. No filing I read for 2022-26 names an ethanol adviser of record; Ascendant is the closest the record gets.

2. Verdant Partners: ag-only since 1998, and the best dated 2026 flow

Verdant Partners, Champaign, Illinois, "wholly focused on food and agriculture," has "managed transactions and alliances valued at more than U.S. $3.0 billion" with a team of 20 across four continents; Managing Partner Garrett L. Stoerger. Dated announcements: Yield Energy / Polaris Energy Services to Cascade Energy, sell-side, August 11, 2026, co-managed with North River Capital Advisors; Total Seed Production's purchase of a soybean facility, buy-side, March 20, 2026; Tozer Seeds to A. Duda & Sons and G's Group, February 3, 2026; KWS and Vilmorin's divestiture of AgReliant Genetics to GDM, September 2, 2025; GroGuru to Goanna Ag, August 20, 2025; Legacy Seeds to GDM, July 9, 2025. SEC corroboration: S&W Seed's May 31, 2016 asset acquisition agreement names "the engagement letters with Verdant Partners LLC" among the seller's excluded contracts. Its annual review has published every winter since at least 2019. Registration: none published, and the SEC adviser-info database returns no exact match. Verdict: the anchor for a seed, input or agtech seller; ask which broker-dealer runs any stock leg.

3. Piper Sandler: the only firm that dates its agriculture tombstones

Piper Sandler publishes Agriculture and Biorenewables and Food & Beverage as separate named sectors inside its Consumer group. Its dated ag tombstones: The Stoller Group to Corteva, March 8, 2023; AgJunction to Kubota, December 17, 2021; Floratine BioSciences to Valent BioSciences, January 30, 2023; Meristem Crop Performance to an acquirer it names as "Bridgepoint Group," October 3, 2024, which I could not identify and which is almost certainly not the Omaha investment bank of a similar name; and Benson Hill to Confluence Genetics, May 23, 2025, whose structure I did not verify. Undated: Nutriquest to Elanco, SePRO to Stanley Capital Partners. Two cautions: no ag banker is named on the page, and the same page carries cannabis capital-markets deals that are not agribusiness credits. Verdict: the dated record for an input or agtech seller whose buyer is a listed strategic like Corteva or Kubota.

4. Lincoln International: the deepest named food-processing bench

Lincoln International, Chicago, runs a Food & Beverage group across eighteen named sub-sectors, of which Grains & Cereals, Ingredients and Proteins put it in this hub, with ten named bankers, including Jeffrey Cleveland, David Houser and Christopher Stradling (Co-Head of Consumer), Charles Walder, Dirk Damegger and Tom Cunningham. Processing-side deals, all undated: Highland Baking to Europastry, J. Skinner Baking to Stellex, McClancy Foods & Flavors to NovaTaste / PAI Partners, DeIorio Foods to Encore Consumer Capital, Dutch Gold Honey to New Water Capital, SuanNutra to Carbyne Equity Partners. Its Food & Beverage Quarterly Review for Q2 2026 published in August 2026, the most current food research on the bench. Verdict: the first call for a $30M-$300M processor or ingredient maker with a cross-border strategic list; ask for the last three dated closes, because no tombstone carries one.

5. Cascadia Capital: the only practice that names co-packing as a lane

Cascadia Capital, Seattle, runs Food, Beverage & Agribusiness with a sub-sector list no one else publishes: Manufacturing (Contract Manufacturing, Private Label, Food Service), alongside ingredients, agribusiness and animal-feed verticals. It names bankers with coverage: George Sent (protein and bakery), Tyler Howard (bakery, food and beverage manufacturing), Bryan Jaffe (companion animal, animal health). Deals: Braemont Capital's purchase of Royal Cup and HGS BioScience's purchase of NutriAg, both 2025; Blue Pacific Flavors to Capol / Freudenberg; Sentera to John Deere; Turtle Island Foods (Tofurky) to Morinaga, mostly undated. Research: a Bakery Manufacturing Report of February 4, 2026; its agribusiness quarterly last published March 13, 2024. Verdict: the co-packer's first call because it is the only bench firm that names contract manufacturing and private label as a lane, and the caveat is that none of its published deals is a co-manufacturing sale; ask for a dated one before you assume the label transfers.

6. Capstone Partners: the deepest ag map and the freshest research

Capstone Partners, Boston, whose broker-dealer, Capstone Capital Markets LLC, its own footer describes as a subsidiary of Huntington Bancshares Incorporated, runs an Agriculture Investment Banking Group with the most complete published taxonomy on the bench: Ag Inputs (including machinery and equipment), Food Production and AgTech. Its research is the freshest here: Food Production M&A Update, September 8, 2026; AgTech M&A Update, February 10, 2026; and the April 2026 food and October 2025 agri-inputs reports this guide prices from. Named deals, undated: Dairy Farmers of America's divestiture of assets to NDSM Holdings, Gerawan Farming / Prima to Wawona Packing, Origination (O2D) to Wind Point Partners. Its "Top 10 U.S. MMIB" claim names no awarding body. Verdict: the research authority for all three lanes and a legitimate process bank for a $20M-$150M input, farming or processing seller.

7. BofA Securities: the buy side of the defining grain deal

BofA Securities was financial adviser to Bunge on its combination with Viterra, agreed June 13, 2023 and completed as reported in Bunge's 8-K filed July 2, 2025, with Latham & Watkins as counsel; the closing release names no adviser to Viterra, Glencore, CPPIB or BCI. Signing to completion ran about 24.6 months, our calculation. Verdict: the bank most likely to sit across the table from you above $1B; no agribusiness sell-side credit below that in any filing I found.

8. Goldman Sachs: exclusive to the buyer on the reference 2025 egg-products deal

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC was "Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.'s exclusive financial advisor" on the Echo Lake Foods purchase, announced April 8, 2025 at approximately $258M and completed June 2, 2025; Cal-Maine's FY2026 10-K later reports approximately $289.5M in its narrative and approximately $275M net in its critical-audit-matter section, unreconciled, and Echo Lake's adviser is not named. It also ran Cal-Maine's April 2025 secondary, 2,978,740 shares at $92.75 sold by the late founder's daughters and the board chair. Verdict: ranked because the credit is SEC-filed and the deal is the period's reference for a prepared-foods buy; buy-side, at scale.

9. Rabo Securities: the ag bank on a generalist cover

Rabo Securities USA, Inc., Rabobank's U.S. securities arm, is the only agriculture-specialist bank among the ten underwriters on Smithfield Foods' prospectus dated January 27, 2025, listed eighth. That is a capital-markets role, not an M&A adviser-of-record credit, and I could not verify a Rabobank U.S. M&A practice page, named bankers or any sell-side credit, so I describe none. Verdict: included for the one hard credit, which shows the ag lender's bank on a protein transaction.

Is my agribusiness M&A adviser FINRA-registered, and why does BrokerCheck return the wrong firm?

Ask for three dated closes with named counterparties first, because in this sector registration and evidence quality are uncorrelated. I ran every advisory brand in this guide through the SEC adviser-info firm database behind FINRA BrokerCheck on September 15, 2026, and corroborated each live registration with its most recent annual audited broker-dealer report. The best-evidenced ag-only adviser in the country, Verdant Partners, returns zero exact matches and publishes no FINRA statement. Call it the Agribusiness Registration Finding, a Peony-original observation, with three reasons a name comes back empty: the deal is not a securities transaction (a dealership transfer is an asset purchase gated on OEM consent; farm real property and elevator assets change hands without stock); the securities leg runs through a separately named broker-dealer rented from an umbrella firm; or the firm owns its broker-dealer under a different legal name.

Outside the federal M&A-broker exemption at 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13), EBITDA under $25M or revenue under $250M on either limb, any securities leg needs a registered broker-dealer whatever the adviser calls itself, and the exemption does not displace state real-estate licensing where land transfers.

Which twelve naming and attribution traps will a search on this bench return?

Six are name collisions with unrelated registered entities or lenders, the worst of any sector I have benched, and six are side-of-the-deal and dating traps:

1. Verdant Partners LLC (Champaign) is not Verdant Capital, a parked domain, nor Verdant Growth Management LLC, the prior name of AFI Capital Partners LLC (CRD 299317), which BrokerCheck returns for the search.
2. Bridgepoint Investment Banking (Omaha) is almost certainly not the "Bridgepoint Group" Piper Sandler names as Meristem's acquirer, which I could not identify.
3. CoBank and the Farm Credit associations are lenders, not advisers; Ascendant's founder's CoBank lineage is not a credit.
4. Cascadia Capital, LLC (CRD 101020) is not Cascadia Acquisition Corp., a SPAC.
5. Capstone Partners (CRD 132185) is not Treo Asset Management (CRD 164982), which files under "Capstone Capital Markets Advisors, LLC."
6. Ascendant Financial Partners, LLC (CRD 143326) is the ag bank, not Ascendant 360, Ascendant Capital Management or Ascendant Financial Advisors; its Rotonda West, Florida EDGAR address is a compliance address.
7. Skyland Grain was the seller, The Andersons the buyer; Ascendant and FTI sat on the sell side.
8. BofA advised Bunge, the buyer; no Viterra-side bank is named.
9. Goldman advised Cal-Maine, the buyer; Echo Lake's adviser is not named.
10. Rabo Securities underwrote the Smithfield IPO; not an M&A credit.
11. Verdant names its annual review for the year reviewed (the "2025" review published February 5, 2026) and Lincoln its quarterly for the quarter reviewed (Q2 2026, published August 2026).
12. 8th Avenue Food & Provisions is a private-label and co-manufacturing business, not a branded one; it belongs in this hub's co-pack lane.

Who did we leave off, and why?

Sites I could not read. Houlihan Lokey's site returns a bot-challenge page to automated requests and Stephens' returns HTTP 403, so neither firm's food or agriculture practice was verifiable and neither is ranked or credited; BMO was not attempted; NCP Inc.'s domain did not resolve on September 15, 2026.

Right city, no ag evidence. Bridgepoint Investment Banking, Omaha, publishes no agriculture, food, grain, ethanol or protein vertical, and its one food-adjacent tombstone, BrightFarms, is a leveraged-finance credit in the client's own words. BCC Advisers, Des Moines, publishes no industry list and names one client, a machining company. Both rent their broker-dealer and say so (StillPoint Capital and M&A Securities Group respectively); neither has an ag deal I could find. Northland Securities, 16 registered branches, shows no verified food or ag practice.

In the ledger, not on the bench. FTI Consulting is named with Ascendant as Skyland's adviser but is a consulting firm with no agribusiness M&A practice I could evidence; North River Capital Advisors and Flaherty Capital Markets appear only as co-advisers on the ranked firms' own pages; the other seven Smithfield underwriters appear in no other agribusiness filing I read.

Wrong category. CoBank describes itself as "one of the largest private providers of credit to the U.S. rural economy"; it and the Farm Credit associations are lenders, and putting one in the adviser column is the most common error in agribusiness lists. RDO Equipment, Papé Group, Van Wall Equipment and Titan Machinery are buyers; CNH and Deere are the consent counterparty. A dedicated co-packer boutique or a restructuring adviser to distressed co-manufacturers would belong here; I could evidence none, so I name none.

What is the 2026 backdrop for selling an agribusiness: farm income, bridge payments, land values and biofuel policy?

Operating income down, land up, a dated federal bridge and unfinished biofuel rules, all from primary sources. USDA's Economic Research Service, September 3, 2026: 2026 net farm income $158.4 billion, down 2.6% nominally and 5.5% after inflation; net cash farm income $176.4 billion, up 0.4% nominally and down 2.5% in real terms, with crop specializations forecast higher and every animal specialization lower. Say which measure you mean, because the two headline lines move in opposite nominal directions; the crop-up, protein-down split is why grain and protein deals do not rhyme.

Land is the shock absorber. USDA's Land Values 2026 Summary, published July 2026: farm real estate $4,500 an acre, up 3.4%; cropland $6,020, up 3.3%; pasture $2,000, up 4.2%; Iowa cropland $10,700, up 3.9%. Growth decelerated from 4.7% for cropland in the 2025 edition but did not turn.

The bridge has a date. The Farmer Bridge Assistance final rule, 91 FR 8360 of February 23, 2026, makes $11 billion available in one-time payments, not the $12 billion announced in December 2025, "in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs," "until historic investments from the OBBBA, including reference prices which are set to increase between 10–21 percent for major covered commodities such as soybeans, corn, and wheat, reach eligible farmers after October 1, 2026." Corn pays $44.36 an acre, soybeans $30.88 and wheat $39.35, capped at $155,000 per person or entity, with an average 2021-23 adjusted gross income above $900,000 disqualifying. That is the Bridge-to-October Cliff: a federal rule states that ad-hoc aid runs to a scheduled reference-price step-up, the date a buyer of an input retailer models.

Biofuel clocks. EPA's RFS Set 2 final rule, 91 FR 16388 of April 1, 2026, sets 2026-27 volumes "over 15 percent" above 2023-25, projects 21.87 and 22.25 billion gallons of renewable fuel supplied in 2026 and 2027, and removes eRINs, and on September 4, 2026 EPA extended the 2025 compliance reporting deadline.

Foreign buyers carry a federal filing with a percentage attached. The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act requires any foreign person acquiring, transferring or holding an interest in U.S. agricultural land to report within 90 days, with late-report penalties accruing at one-tenth of one percent of fair market value per week up to 25%; USDA's June 25, 2026 proposed rule (91 FR 38315) would raise the accrual rate, remove downward adjustments, and pull short leases, forestry and conservation land into scope.

What do buyers diligence in each agribusiness sub-market, and what goes in the data room?

Consent, capacity, credits and concentration, one per lane: the dealer agreement and floorplan schedule, nameplate and the 45Z file, the customer-contract file, and the land and water file; everything below traces to a filing or rule cited in this guide unless marked as a practitioner item.

• Equipment dealers: the dealer agreement and its "area of responsibility"; written OEM consent and evidence the OEM will grant the buyer a dealer agreement; the floorplan inventory schedule and its financing liabilities, priced separately, the Farmers Implement shape above; the owned-versus-leased facility schedule and sale-leaseback exposure (Titan's $9.7M charge to buy 13 leased facilities); and technician headcount as a practitioner item.
• Ethanol and biofuel plants: 45Z eligibility by production and sale date, the ILUC exclusion after December 31, 2025 and the manure rate; Form 637 excise-tax registration, which the proposed regulations cover; realised-credit history per gallon of nameplate, the Andersons line above; the RIN position and 2025 compliance status; small-refinery-exemption exposure; nameplate versus achieved capacity; co-located grain storage and whether it is inside the perimeter (8.2 million bushels at Obion); and the working-capital true-up.
• Grain handling and ag retail: owned-versus-leased storage (73% owned at Andersons); the capacity trend and its causes; subsidiary-level covenants restricting distributions (Skyland's $128.4M of net assets are restricted as to dividends); and, as practitioner items, warehouse licences, the hedge book and the grain position.
• Food processors and co-packers: customer relationships, trade names, contracts and non-compete agreements, the intangibles Cal-Maine's auditor called a critical audit matter because their value is "sensitive to assumptions such as projected revenue, growth rates, customer attrition, discount rates, and contributory asset charges"; co-pack agreements that survive a sale (B&G still produces Green Giant products for Seneca; Dow kept the TELONE plant); capital-project commitments (Cal-Maine's fiscal 2027 scrambled-egg and pancake lines); the capital-structure waterfall (8th Avenue's debt, finance leases and 11% preferred ahead of common); and, as standard practice, USDA or FDA inspection standing, SQF or BRC certification tier, HACCP plans and recall history.
• Farm real estate, livestock and co-ops: the AFIDA filing calendar; farm-program eligibility that travels with the operation ($155,000 cap, $900,000 AGI test, FSA-578 acreage); land value against a dated USDA benchmark; CAFO permit status and water rights as practitioner items; Iowa Code § 422.7(13)'s farm-only capital-gain deduction; and the JV and minority-stake documents that the Equity-Income Tell makes first-order.

For a seasonal business the quality of earnings report should be built on the crop year; the M&A process guide covers sequencing, and any timeline in it is practitioner framing, because the one primary datum on an agribusiness timeline is Bunge's 24.6 months.

What do agribusiness M&A advisers charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and not one agribusiness adviser publishes a rate: the sitemaps of every firm on this bench carry no fee page. The only filed adviser-compensation figure in U.S. food over the period is Smithfield's January 2025 IPO, a $0.90 per share underwriting discount on a $20.00 offer price, $23.5M in total, a 4.5% gross spread, our arithmetic. Below that scale the conventions in our M&A advisor fees guide apply: the classic Lehman scale, 5% of the first $1M stepping down to 1% above $4M, or the double Lehman at twice those rates, $300,000 or $600,000 on a $20M deal. Settle three agribusiness-specific terms first: whether the percentage applies to total consideration including real estate and separately floorplanned inventory, whether a JV partner's buy-out counts as a sale, and what your banker is being paid by the buyer's lender or sponsor.

How do I keep the sale confidential when the buyer trades at my elevator, and where does Peony fit?

By deciding, document by document, who reads what and when, because in every lane the likeliest buyer can hurt you if the deal dies: the co-op that already buys your grain, the strategic you already co-pack for, the consolidator whose agronomists trade at your elevator. The fix is staged access, run out of a room you control:

• A separate data room per bidder, with visitor groups walling a co-op off from a strategic, and a separate workspace for the OEM consent package.
• Staged disclosure: teaser and location-level summaries first; the capacity build and the 45Z and RIN ledger in the middle; grower contracts, customer-level pricing and the dealer agreement itself last, after a bid you believe.
• Per-viewer watermarks on every rendered page, so a forwarded grower list traces to one reader; Data Room plan and up.
• NDA gates before the room opens: acknowledge-only NDA on Business and up, Advanced NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room and up; one-click revoke on Business and up when a bidder drops.
• Page-level analytics showing which bidder spent forty minutes on the customer-concentration schedule, plus auto-indexing, Q&A, redaction on the Deal Team plan, a custom domain and the security layer.

Peony is not an M&A advisor and does not place deals; the firms above do that. We are the confidential room the process runs in: pick your advisor first, then stand up the room. Peony is used by 6,800+ customers on exactly this layer, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra; the build is in our M&A data room playbook. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, the tier a sell-side process wants. Business is $30 per admin per month; Deal Team is $64 per admin per month billed annually with a four-admin minimum; a Free tier exists; every tier includes unlimited free viewers.

So which agribusiness M&A adviser should you hire?

The one whose dated evidence sits in your denominator, because agribusiness is three markets and the currencies do not convert. If you sell inputs, seed or agtech, your evidence is Verdant Partners' 2025-26 flow and Piper Sandler's dated Corteva and Kubota credits. If you sell a dealership, the OEM decides, the inventory sits outside the price, and the bench is thin; hire on consent-package experience. If you process grain, feed, ethanol or protein, you are priced per gallon or per bushel with a policy option on top, and Ascendant Partners is the only boutique with a filed credit; document both denominators before a buyer chooses the smaller one. If you co-pack or make ingredients, you are priced on EBITDA at a four-turn discount to brands and your customer file is the asset: Cascadia Capital, Lincoln International or Capstone Partners. Above $1B, BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs are the banks across the table. Then decide who reads what, and when.

Related resources

• Best M&A advisors and the consumer products, automotive and industrial benches.
• Des Moines M&A advisors and Omaha M&A advisors.
• Top agriculture and agtech investors and food investors.
• M&A advisor fees, M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank and quality of earnings.
• M&A data room, how to write a CIM and mergers and acquisitions examples.
• Pricing and the M&A, due diligence and private equity solution pages.

Frequently asked questions

Farm income is down and tariffs are unsettled — is 2026 a good time to sell an agribusiness, or should I wait?

It depends which of the three sub-markets you are in, because they are not on the same cycle. USDA's Economic Research Service forecast of September 3, 2026 puts 2026 net farm income at $158.4 billion, down 2.6% nominally and 5.5% after inflation, with crop farms forecast higher and every animal specialization lower. Food-sector deal counts bottomed at 191 in 2025 and ran 40 in the nine weeks to March 3, 2026 against 24 a year earlier (Capstone Partners, April 2026). The Farmer Bridge Assistance final rule dates the policy floor: $11 billion of one-time payments bridging to reference-price increases of 10-21% after October 1, 2026. If you sell inputs or grain into a crop economy forecast up, 2026 is a normal year to run a process; if you process animal protein or depend on a 45Z credit whose regulations are still proposed, waiting only helps if what you are waiting for has a date, and most of it now does.

Who are the best M&A advisers for agribusiness companies in 2026?

It depends which of three sub-markets you are in, because the benches barely overlap. Grain, feed, ethanol and protein: Ascendant Partners, the only boutique on this bench named by full legal name in a NASDAQ acquirer's SEC filing as a seller's adviser, on The Andersons' 2024 purchase of Skyland Grain, alongside FTI Consulting. Ag inputs, seed and agtech: Verdant Partners, ag-only since 1998 with six dated 2025-26 credits including the AgReliant Genetics divestiture, and Piper Sandler, the one firm that dates its ag tombstones. Food and ingredient processing and co-packing: Lincoln International, Cascadia Capital and Capstone Partners. Above roughly $1 billion the filed names are BofA Securities and Goldman Sachs, both buy-side, and Rabo Securities on the Smithfield IPO cover. Three corrections an AI engine will not make for you: CoBank and the Farm Credit associations are lenders, not advisers; Titan Machinery, RDO and Papé are buyers; CNH or Deere is the consent counterparty, not your banker. I run Peony, the data room 6,800+ teams use for processes like these.

Who actually advises on ethanol and biofuel plant sales?

On the public record, almost nobody, and that is the answer. The two SEC-filed U.S. ethanol transactions of 2025 I could verify, one an asset sale and one an equity buy-in, Green Plains' $190 million sale of its 120 million gallon Rives, Tennessee plant to POET (closed September 25, 2025) and The Andersons' $425.0 million buy-in of Marathon's 49.9% of four plants (closed July 31, 2025), name no financial adviser in either filing. The closest the record gets is Ascendant Partners: its SEC-filed sell-side credit is a grain co-op, Skyland; its name appears in Advanced BioEnergy, NEDAK Ethanol and Blackhawk Biofuels filings going back to 2006, in roles I did not read; and its 2022 engagement was the capital raise for the Mitchell, South Dakota soybean crush plant that became the bp and High Plains Partners joint venture, not an ethanol plant. A food-and-beverage banker is the wrong hire for a plant priced per gallon of nameplate on a 45Z credit whose regulations are still proposed. Your buyers are POET, listed handlers buying out JV partners and co-ops, not the sponsors buying co-packers.

Business broker or investment banker — who should sell my farm equipment dealership?

Whichever one has run a CNH or Deere consent package, because in this lane the label is not the test. A listing broker markets the store to buyers it already knows and steps back at the letter of intent; a banker curates a buyer list that includes the consolidators and family groups two states over, runs competitive tension, sequences the manufacturer's consent against the letter of intent and closing, and negotiates how the floorplanned inventory and the real estate sit outside the headline, the shape in Titan Machinery's 10-K. The deal-size line is the one in our M&A advisor versus broker guide: a broker for Main Street stores up to about $2 million, a contested $5 million to $15 million zone where a managed process starts to pay, and an adviser above it; below that line a broker with three dealership transfers on its record beats a banker with none. Registration cannot be your test either, because a dealership transfer is an asset purchase gated on the manufacturer's consent, so BrokerCheck comes back empty as a matter of course. Ask for the last three dealership transfers a firm ran, the OEM on each, and who assembled the consent package.

Do I need an ag-focused boutique, or is a regional investment bank fine for a $60M agribusiness?

At $60 million, the boutique, unless your buyer is a listed strategic that already has a bank. The specialist buys you a buyer list that includes co-ops and the seed, input and grain strategics a generalist does not call, plus diligence anticipation on dealer agreements, JV documents and credit eligibility; the evidence at your size is Verdant's six dated 2025-26 credits, including two European listed groups divesting AgReliant Genetics to GDM, and Ascendant's SEC-filed Skyland credit for a 7,000-member co-op. A mid-market platform, Lincoln International, Capstone Partners or Piper Sandler, buys you process horsepower and a wider sponsor universe. The large banks are out of range on evidence, not just fee minimums: BofA's and Goldman's agribusiness credits are buy-side.

What EBITDA multiple do food co-packers sell for in 2026?

Below the branded multiple by about four turns, and no published index prices a pure contract manufacturer. Capstone Partners' April 2026 food report, priced March 3, 2026, has Branded Processed Foods at a median 11.6x EV/LTM EBITDA and its Private Label Foods index at 7.6x; that index has two constituents, Lamb Weston at 8.4x and Seneca Foods at 6.8x, neither a co-packer, so treat 7.6x as a direction, not a quote. The price a buyer pays is set by concentration first: Cal-Maine's auditor flagged the valuation of Echo Lake Foods' customer relationships and contracts as a critical audit matter because the estimates are sensitive to customer attrition. For a $12M-EBITDA co-packer with one customer at 45% of revenue, the customer-contract file is the asset being valued, and page-level analytics in a Peony room show which bidder read it and for how long.

How are grain elevators, feed mills and ethanol plants valued — per bushel of capacity, or on EBITDA?

Per unit of capacity first, then reconciled to earnings, and the two do not convert. For ethanol the arithmetic is dollars per gallon of nameplate: Green Plains' $190 million Obion sale is $1.58 a gallon gross or $1.42 net of the $20 million working-capital estimate, our calculation from the filing, an upper bound because 8.2 million bushels of grain storage were bundled in; The Andersons' $425.0 million for 49.9% of four plants implies $851.7 million for 100%, which is $2.10 a gallon on the 405 million gallons of nameplate in its 10-K or $1.70 on the 500 million gallons its 8-K calls production capacity, so name the denominator. For elevators there is no published dollars-per-bushel benchmark: The Andersons paid $85.0 million for 65% of Skyland Grain, an implied $130.8 million for 100%, but the acquired bushel capacity is not disclosed. Crush volatility is normalised the way a buyer underwrites it: the multi-year crush, the credit priced as its own line, and the storage, hedge-book and grain-position schedules asked for before the bid.

Should my agtech company take a Series A or sell to a strategic in 2026?

Run the arithmetic on proceeds today against your diluted share of a later outcome, and know that no verified agtech revenue multiple exists to plug in; I publish none. What the record shows is who buys: Kubota bought AgJunction (December 17, 2021, Piper Sandler's dated tombstone), John Deere bought Sentera (Cascadia Capital, undated), Goanna Ag bought GroGuru's soil-sensing business (August 20, 2025, Verdant) and Confluence Genetics bought Benson Hill's business (May 23, 2025, Piper Sandler; structure not verified by me). Strategics pay for distribution into an existing dealer network and a channel they cannot build; a venture investor prices the same company on growth and the next round. For a founder at $4M ARR with a term sheet and an inbound from an OEM, the two processes are run differently and starting one narrows the other, so run them in separate data rooms with separate NDAs. Run both rooms and let the two term sheets, not the adviser, tell you.

My dealer agreement says the manufacturer has to approve the buyer — can John Deere or CNH block my sale?

Yes, on the record of the one dealer agreement described in an SEC filing. Titan Machinery's 10-K states that CNH may decline, in its sole discretion, to consent to any acquisition of a CNH store, and that on a proposed divestiture CNH has significant influence on the purchaser because it retains discretion whether or not to grant a dealer agreement. Unlike a franchised car dealership, where California's statute gives the manufacturer 60 days and forbids unreasonable refusal, the filing I read describes no clock and no reasonableness standard for a CNH dealer; whether your state's dealer-protection statute supplies one is a question for counsel, and I cite none because I verified none. I have only CNH's terms; do not assume Deere's match. Test the buyer with the OEM before the letter of intent and make written consent a closing condition.

How does the OEM consent process work when I sell my equipment dealership, and how long does it add?

No public source states the time, and that is the first fact to plan around. The one dealer agreement described in an SEC filing, CNH's in Titan Machinery's 10-K, carries no clock and no reasonableness standard in the text I read; a California car dealer gets a 60-day statutory answer, and a farm-equipment dealer gets whatever the manufacturer's process takes, so consent, not financial diligence, sets your timeline. Sequence it in three steps: sound the OEM out on the buyer before the letter of intent, so a refusal costs you a conversation rather than a signed exclusivity; assemble the consent package the manufacturer asks for in a workspace your general manager never sees; and make written consent a closing condition in the definitive agreement, with the floorplanned inventory purchase from the manufacturer timed to the same closing, the way Titan's $7.0 million inventory purchase sat beside its $13.4 million store purchase. A separate Peony workspace for the consent file keeps the bidder rooms from ever seeing it.

What documents go in a data room for an agribusiness sale?

The ag-specific set generic checklists omit, staged so the buyer reads the right tranche at the right time. Dealers: the dealer agreement with its area of responsibility, the OEM consent file, the floorplan inventory schedule with its financing liabilities, and the owned-versus-leased facility schedule. Processors: nameplate versus achieved capacity, co-located storage, the working-capital definition, 45Z registration and realised-credit history, the RIN position, and the JV and minority-stake documents. Co-packers: customer contracts and non-competes, the assets Cal-Maine's auditor called a critical audit matter, surviving co-pack agreements, capital-project commitments and the capital-structure waterfall. Land: the AFIDA filing calendar, FSA-578 acreage, related-party leases. Then the room: one Peony data room per bidder so no co-op sees a strategic's tranche, staged disclosure holding grower contracts and customer-level pricing behind a later gate, Advanced NDA gating with a countersigned PDF before anything opens, per-viewer dynamic watermarks so a forwarded page traces to the reader, and page-level analytics showing which bidder read the credit records. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually with unlimited free viewers; Business at $30 covers the teaser stage; a Free tier exists. Peony serves 6,800+ customers and is not an adviser.

How do buyers treat 45Z credits and RIN inventory when they value my ethanol plant?

As a separate line priced on policy risk, not capitalised at the plant multiple. The Andersons realised $35 million of Section 45Z clean fuel production credits in 2025 across 405 million gallons of nameplate, about $0.086 a gallon by our calculation, in a year its board crush improved $0.02 a gallon; the credit was worth roughly four times the year's crush improvement. The rules as of September 2026: the credit applies to fuel produced after December 31, 2024 and sold by December 31, 2029 under section 70521 of the July 4, 2025 OBBBA; fuel produced after December 31, 2025 must exclude indirect land use change from its emissions rate; and the implementing regulations are a proposed rule, 91 FR 5160 of February 4, 2026, with no final rule. On RINs, EPA's Set 2 rule of April 1, 2026 raised 2026-27 volumes more than 15% above 2023-25, and the 2025 compliance reporting deadline was extended on September 4, 2026; whether RIN inventory sits in price or in working capital is a negotiated point. Put the Form 637 registration, the credit calculations and the RIN ledger in their own tranche of the data room, because that tranche decides whether your plant is a $1.50-a-gallon asset or something less.

How do I separate the farmland from the operating company before a sale, and what happens to my water rights?

Decide the structure before the teaser goes out, because the land is the part of your balance sheet that kept appreciating while the operating business did not. USDA's Land Values 2026 Summary (July 2026) has U.S. farm real estate at $4,500 an acre, up 3.4%, cropland at $6,020, up 3.3%, and Iowa cropland at $10,700, up 3.9%. Selling the land with the company widens the headline and narrows the buyer pool; selling it separately and leasing it back turns your related-party rent into the add-back a buyer re-underwrites first, at market rent. Tax differs by asset: Iowa Code section 422.7(13) still exempts capital gain on farm real property held and materially farmed for ten years, while Iowa's general business capital-gain deduction is gone. Water rights are state law; what a buyer asks, as practitioner framing with no statute cited here, is whether the right is appurtenant, its priority, whether it transfers and whether it survives the deal. A foreign buyer adds AFIDA: a report within 90 days, penalties up to 25% of fair market value.

What is a normal success fee percentage for a middle-market ag deal, and what does the whole process cost?

Nobody in agriculture publishes one, so every percentage you are quoted is a negotiation, not a market rate. The only filed figure in U.S. food over the period, the 4.5% gross spread on Smithfield's January 2025 IPO, is an underwriting fee, not an M&A success fee. Below that scale the conventions are the classic Lehman scale, 5% of the first million falling to 1% above $4 million, or the double Lehman at twice those rates: on a $20 million deal that is $300,000 or $600,000, 1.5% or 3.0% effective, our arithmetic. The shape is a monthly retainer credited against a success fee; negotiate the minimum fee, the tail period, expenses, whether the percentage applies to total consideration including real estate and floorplanned inventory, and exclusivity length. All-in, add counsel, a quality-of-earnings report, transaction accounting and a data room, which on Peony's Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month rather than a per-page bill.

A strategic has already offered to buy my co-packing plant — does hiring an adviser actually pay for itself?

Usually yes, and the arithmetic runs in turns of EBITDA rather than fee percentages. On $8 million of EBITDA, one turn is $8 million; a double-Lehman success fee on a $60 million sale is about $1.4 million, roughly 2.3% and about one-sixth of a turn, our illustrative arithmetic. Beyond price the adviser adds a second bidder, management of certifications and customer consents, structure, escrow and earn-out terms, and closing certainty. The tells of an offer priced to an internal accretion target: no diligence list, a price stated before anyone has read your customer contracts, and a short exclusivity ask. The honest case for negotiating directly exists: if your buyer universe is two strategics you already supply and you have counsel and a transaction accountant, a direct negotiation can match a process. Run it in a room you control either way, with Advanced NDA gating and per-viewer watermarks, because the strategic that already called competes with you if the deal dies.

Sources

• The Andersons, Inc. 8-K Exhibit 99.1, November 6, 2024 (Skyland); 8-K, August 4, 2025 (TAMH); Forms 10-K for FY2024 and FY2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/821026/000082102624000229/skylandpressrelease.htm
• South Dakota Soybean Processors, LLC 8-K Exhibit 99.1, February 9, 2022, and 8-K, September 19, 2023 (EDGAR).
• S&W Seed Company 8-K Exhibit 2.1, May 31, 2016. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477246/000113626116000494/exh2-1.htm
• Bunge Global SA 8-K and Exhibit 99.1, filed July 2, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1996862/000110465925065405/
• Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. 8-K Exhibits 99.1, April 8 and June 2, 2025; 8-K, April 17, 2025; Form 10-K filed July 22, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/16160/000156276225000156/exhibit991.htm
• Post Holdings, Inc. 8-K Exhibit 99.1, June 3, 2025 (announcement), and 8-K with the stock purchase agreement, June 9, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1530950/000153095025000167/ex991_prpostholdingstoacqu.htm
• Green Plains Inc. 8-Ks filed August 27 and September 26, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1309402/000130940225000149/exhibit991-pressrelease926.htm
• Titan Machinery Inc. Form 10-K for FY ended January 31, 2026, filed March 31, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1409171/000162828026022376/titn-20260131.htm
• Smithfield Foods, Inc. Form 424(b)(4), prospectus dated January 27, 2025, filed January 29, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/91388/000162828025002907/smithfieldfoods-424b4.htm
• CHS Inc. Form 10-K for FY ended August 31, 2025, filed November 5, 2025; JBS N.V. 8-K and Form 425, filed August 19, 2026 (EDGAR).
• USDA ERS, "Highlights From the Farm Income Forecast," September 3, 2026. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/highlights-from-the-farm-income-forecast
• USDA NASS, "Land Values 2026 Summary," July 2026, and "Land Values 2025 Summary," August 2025. https://release.nass.usda.gov/reports/land0726.pdf
• Commodity Credit Corporation, Farmer Bridge Assistance Program final rule, 91 FR 8360, February 23, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-02-23
• IRS/Treasury, Section 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit NPRM, 91 FR 5160, February 4, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-02-04
• EPA, RFS Standards for 2026 and 2027, final rule, 91 FR 16388, April 1, 2026; compliance deadline extension 91 FR 56780, September 4, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-04-01
• USDA, AFIDA proposed rule, 91 FR 38315, June 25, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-06-25
• Capstone Partners, "Food Sector Update, April 2026"; "Agriculture Inputs Sector Update, October 2025"; "Food Production M&A Update, September 2026"; "AgTech M&A Update" (February 10, 2026). https://www.capstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Capstone-Partners_Food_MA-Coverage-Report_April-2026.pdf; https://www.capstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Capstone-Partners-Ag-Inputs_MA-Coverage-Report_October-2025.pdf
• Lincoln International, Food & Beverage practice page and "Food & Beverage Quarterly Review, Q2 2026." https://www.lincolninternational.com/industries/consumer/food-beverage/
• Cascadia Capital, Food, Beverage & Agribusiness practice page; "Bakery Manufacturing Report" (February 4, 2026). https://www.cascadiacapital.com/industries/food-beverage-and-agribusiness/
• Piper Sandler, Agriculture and Biorenewables practice page. https://www.pipersandler.com/consumer/agriculture-and-biorenewables
• Verdant Partners and Ascendant Partners, firm sites read September 15, 2026. https://www.verdantpartners.com/; https://www.ascendantpartners.com/
• Iowa Code 2026 §§ 422.5 and 422.7 (legis.iowa.gov); 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78o
• SEC adviser-info firm database for CRD numbers, September 15, 2026.

About the author: Sean Yu is the co-founder of Peony, the data room platform used by 6,800+ customers across M&A, fundraising, and private-deal workflows. He works on the access-control and analytics layer that decides who is allowed to read a confidential document. Peony is not an M&A advisor; it is the confidential room a deal process runs in. Contact: hello@peony.ink.