Neil E. Harl was born in 1933 in Appanoose County, Iowa. He received his B.S. (1955) from Iowa State College (University), his J.D. (1961) from the University of Iowa, and his Ph.D. (1965) in economics from Iowa State University.



Harl served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Army (1955-1957), after which he served as a Field Editor for Wallace's Farmer for a year (1957-1958). He worked as an agricultural economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1958-1964) before joining Iowa State University as an Associate Professor (1964-1967), Professor (1967-2004), and Professor Emeritus (2005- ) of economics. In 1976, he became Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture. He also served as a Lecturer (1982) at Drake University.



Harl was the Director (1990-2004) of Iowa State's Center for International Agricultural Finance, which conducts educational programs in Eastern and Central Europe, the Baltic states, Russia, and other states in the former Soviet Union. Under Harl’s direction, the center promoted Schools of Agricultural Banking, Credit and Finance in Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Lithuania and Ukraine. He lectured in The People's Republic of China, Australia, England, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Venezuela. He led task forces to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine to advise their central governments.



Harl served many professional groups, including organizing the American Agricultural Law Association and serving as its first president (1980-1981), as well as serving as President of the American Agricultural Economics Association (1983-1984). He was a member of both the Iowa State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.



Harl’s main areas of law interest include estate planning and taxation, business planning, and agricultural law. He published widely, including 29 books, more than 400 professional articles and bulletins, and more than 850 articles in farm and financial publications. He authored the Farm Income Tax Manual for 2006 and 2007 (general collection: KF6369.8 F3 O3), the Agricultural Law Manual (Archives KF1681 A8 H373x 1985), and Farm Estate and Business Planning (Archives KF1713.Z9 H32x 1976). He spoke widely on estate planning, organization of the farm business, and creditor-debtor relations, with over 2800 speaking engagements in 42 states.



Harl served on six federal advisory bodies: a Farm Tax Reform Task Force for the U.S. Department of the Treasury (1967); the Commissioner's Advisory Group (Commissioner of Internal Revenue) (1979-1980); the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Structure Task Force (1980); the Office of Technology Assessment, Technical Advisory Committee, by Congressional Appointment (1987-1995, chair 1993-94); the U.S. Department of Agriculture Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology (2000-2002); and the Commission on Federal Payment Limitations in Agriculture (2002-2003).



He received more than 30 major awards including the USDA Superior Service Award (1987), the President’s Award from the Iowa State Bar Association (1991), the Charles A. Black Award from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (1997) for effectiveness in communicating with the public, the Distinguished Service to Agriculture award from the Chicago Farmers Club (1999), the Wallace's Farmer Iowa Master Farmer Award for Exceptional Service to Agriculture (2000), the Speaker of the Year Award by the National Society of Accountants (2000), the Presidential Service Award from Iowa State University (2002), the Award for Service to American and World Agriculture from the National Association of County Agricultural Agents (2006), the Order of the Knoll Award from the Iowa State University Foundation (2013), and the dedication of Harl Commons on the Iowa State University Campus (2013).



Neil and Darlene Harris Harl were married in 1952. They have two sons, Brent and Rodney.