THE buddy seat on Rick Kimberley’s combine-harvester is a fine vantage point from which to observe precision farming. The combine’s satellite navigation allows farmers to make the most of good weather and to reap in the dark during peak harvesting periods. It is precise enough to trace the most efficient path to scoop up yellow, crinkly corn stalks to within a couple of centimetres. This enables Mr Kimberley, a 67-year old who farms near Maxwell, Iowa, to harvest about 100 acres in a 14-hour day, helped only by a big trailer into which he discharges his corn.

Almost by accident, the silver-haired Mr Kimberley has become a sought-after ambassador for modern farming methods in China. He travels there regularly to talk about precision farming and other tricks of his trade. Mr Kimberley has been to 40 Chinese cities in ten provinces during more than a dozen visits in the past five years. In September he was in China to break ground on a “Friendship Farm” in Hebei province, which is modelled on the Kimberley farm. This will be part of a 3,300-acre endeavour featuring fruit groves, livestock and even a Disney-style version of a small town in Iowa. It will be connected to nearby Beijing by a road and high-speed rail link now under construction.

The transplanting of the Kimberley farm to Hebei is a sign of friendship, says Wendong Zhang of Iowa State university. It will be a museum rather than a model for China’s 260m farmers, who farm two acres on average. The Kimberley way of farming 4,000 acres with some sophisticated machinery and only a couple of hired farm hands is cost-efficient, but would risk creating mass unemployment in rural China. It could possibly be transplanted into the north-east of the country, close to North Korea and Russia, says Mr Zhang. The area is sparsely populated and already operates some large-scale farms.

The Kimberleys’ Chinese adventure started in 2012 when then vice-president, Xi Jinping, already in line to be the nation’s next leader, travelled to Iowa on a tour of America. He had fond memories of a visit back in 1985 when he was a mid-level official from Hebei. During that time he stayed in the town of Muscatine, boarding in the spare bedroom of a family decorated with American football wallpaper and filled with Star Trek toys, and learned about farming. Mr Xi was keen to return to a farm in Iowa on his trip in 2012, so local officials picked the Kimberley farm, which is a half-hour drive from the state capital. With its shiny, silver grain bins, corn and soybean fields, brick-built homestead and photogenic family, it looks the part. The visit was masterminded by Terry Branstad who, as Iowa’s then governor, had met Mr Xi back in 1985, and is now America’s ambassador to Beijing. Mr Xi drove; Mr Kimberley took the buddy seat.

Iowa’s friendly relationship with China, fostered by Mr Branstad, his predecessor, Robert Ray, and enterprising Iowans such as Luca Berrone, a businessman who drove Mr Xi around Iowa for two weeks on his first visit, has benefited the state handsomely. Iowa exports more soybeans to China than to all other countries combined, as well as corn, pork and beef (after a ban was lifted this year). In 1996 Iowa exported $25m-worth of goods to China. Last year it was $491m, says Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s governor. The state’s agri-businesses—Kemin Industries, Hyline, Diamond V, DuPont Pioneer, Vermeer, Emerson and John Deere—all invest in China.

Despite all this, Iowan farmers remain worried about what the federal government has in mind for them. “We cannot do this on our own with bilateral deals,” says Debi Durham of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, who regrets America pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that was pushed by Barack Obama. Governor Reynolds says diplomatically that Mr Trump’s and Mr Xi’s 100-day plan for trade talks, agreed in April in Florida, was a good start. Having conquered Mr Xi with “Iowa nice”, the state government hopes that a relationship fostered over 30 years will survive what comes next. And if that fails, the Friendship Farm will at least be a curious spectacle for China’s city-dwellers.