FORT PIERRE, S.D. - A large farming company from Fargo, N.D., has completed a contract-for-deed purchase of a large grain farm near Fort Pierre, S.D.
R.D. Offutt Co., for four years has been farming the land on a contract-for-deed. The so-called Gunsmoke Farm includes 34,000 under which 31,200 are tilled. Offutt raises spring wheat, winter wheat and milo.
Farm manager Randy Fleischauer says the farm typically raises more than 1.5 million bushels of wheat. In 2014, an Agweek article discussed the company's need to put wheat in plastic bag storage because of market prices and difficulties marketing with rail service issues at the time. Fleischauer says the farm put about 80 bags of wheat into storage in 2016.
Ron D. Offutt is the founder of R.D. Offutt Co., a multi-state farming enterprise that is known as the largest potato producing company in North America. Offutt also is a partner with Lamb-Weston-RDO Frozen potato processing plant in Park Rapids, Minn., and the family also operates RDO Equipment.
In 2012, Offutt entered a four-year contract-for-deed arrangement with Leon Haskins and his son, Rex Haskins, on two farms adjacent to the Fort Pierre farm. The deeds say $24 million was paid for the Leon Haskins farm and $16.7 million for the Rex Haskins place, according to the Pierre Capitol Journal. The Haskins family broke sod on much of his land starting in the 1970s, according to the newspaper.
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The Fort Pierre farm runs from South Dakota Highway 34, west of Fort Pierre, to about 20 miles northwest of Fort Pierre, and includes 53 square miles of tilled land. The farm is neighbors to Ted Turner's Bad River Ranch, and Standing Butte Ranch (formerly Triple U).
Offutt grew up near Moorhead, Minn., and graduated from Concordia College in 1964. His R.D. Offutt farming enterprises includes an average of 60,000 acres of irrigated potatoes in the U.S.; Three Mile Canyon Farms in Boardman, Ore., where he grows irrigated potatoes and other crops, as well as organic products.
Offutt expanded into the John Deere dealer business, starting in Casselton, N.D. RDO Equipment, today led by his family, including his daughter and son-in-law, includes 78 U.S. dealership locations, and is has partnerships in foreign stores. One partnership is in 14 ag and construction stores in Russian; another has seven stores in Ukraine; another has 14 stores in Australia, and a separate partnership in Australia includes five Vermeer stores.
