Articles

Region’s seed experts support court’s decision in favor of Monsanto

Some soybean and seed officials in North Dakota say they’re not surprised about the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that affirmed an Indiana farmer infringed a Monsanto seed patent by buying and planting bin-run soybeans containing the patented trait.

ND senators decry crop insurance, conservation compliance link

The Senate farm bill scheduled for debate May 21 would link crop insurance to conservation compliance, significantly affecting North Dakota farmers who drained wetlands to allow more room for valuable crops. The House bill does not link the two.

ND insurance agents say prevent-plant crop insurance rules are untenable

A new head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency on May 2 got an earful from U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and a roomful of farmers and crop insurance agents in Fargo, about the agency’s handling of prevent-plant rules.

ND PSC begins proceedings against Dakota Prairie

Randy Christmann, the PSC commissioner with the grain warehouse licensing portfolio, acknowledged that the agency on April 26 had petitioned the Wells County Court in Fessenden to be appointed trustee, and to begin the process of distributing the company’s $50,000 bond.

Judge won’t reverse Anderson Seed ruling

An Aberdeen, S.D., district judge has denied a request to reverse a ruling that makes Ray Martinmaas of Orient, S.D., eligible for a bond payment in the Anderson Seed Co. insolvency. The request was made by three managers of prominent grain elevator companies in the state.

Giveth and taketh

Devils Lake, N.D., farmers likely will lose ground gained when the lake receded in 2012.

• Devils Lake
• water equivalent.JPG
• Dan Webster and Evan Schoenfish
• Preparing for the flood

Preparing for the flood

Northern Red River Valley farmers expect to lose acres this year, and can only hope the water comes and goes quickly.

• Kelly and Scott Erickson
• Giveth and taketh

Aberdeen, S.D., gets new private shuttle loader

Surrounded by shuttle loaders and ethanol plants, a new privately owned corn and soybean shuttle loader has just broken ground on a new elevator just west of Aberdeen, S.D.

CoBank gives $250,000 to NDSU projects

CoBank, a national cooperative bank, will donate $250,000 to North Dakota State University’s new Commodity Trading Laboratory and the Quentin Burdick Center for Cooperatives.

Colo. company explores production of nitrogen fertilizer at ND ethanol plants

Colorado company Agrebon Inc. and North Dakota partners are in discussions with North Dakota’s two largest ethanol plants in Casselton and Hankinson to build small-scale nitrogen fertilizer factories on their campuses.

Columns

Faith and business

“At AEFS we are a family of believers. We believe in God, we believe in America, we believe in the family farm and we believe in the Jerusalem artichoke.” — American Energy Farming Systems corporate philosophy.

• Mikkel Pates

Back to the '80s

Will farmers wake up and react to weed resistance?

Will beef always be for dinner?

FARGO, N.D. — In the 1980s, the Wendy’s restaurant chain asked a memorable question, “Where’s the Beef?” Thirty years later, a small minority of Americans are asking a different question, with a twist — “Why is there beef?”

• Mikkel Pates

Fall poetry in farm country

Fall is upon us. It seems hard to believe, but the row crop season harvest could be over before the end of October, depending on whether we start getting badly needed rain. Forgive me for not writing a “drought of 2013” story until we know whether it’s rained before freeze-up.

• Mikkel Pates

Crop insurance

How many drought years will test program limits?

• Mikkel Pates

What's real and what's obscene?

FARGO, N.D. — The “pink slime” controversy brings to mind my days growing up, and my re-education about food at Brookings (S.D.) Middle School. It was there in the late 1960s and early 1970s that I first ate school lunch.

Is that pop champagne?

FARGO, N.D. — If farmers are the eternal optimists, then they may have more to be optimistic in 2012 than ever before. And more to be careful about, I would think.

• Mikkel Pates

100 years of history

FARGO, N.D. — My congratulations to the North Dakota Grain Dealers Association, which celebrated its 100th annual convention in January.

• Mikkel Pates

A prediction on American Crystal’s lockout situation

FARGO, N.D. — I’ve often been asked what I think the future of the labor lockout between American Crystal Sugar Co. and the Bakery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union locals. So here’s what I think.

Bees and a book

FARGO N.D. — Honeybees are important — certainly to my family. I occasionally had a firsthand experience with a commercial honeybee business that was run by my mother’s first cousin, Jim Folsland, in Oldham, S.D., in Kingsbury County.