Submitted Photo Nathan Fredrickson stands next to his corn for sale at a stand in Minot.

GRANVILLE – An FFA fundraising project and an incubator program for new farmers converged in a positive way for a Granville youth this past summer.

“I’ve learned a lot,” said Nathan Fredrickson, 13, whose sweet corn enterprise paid off for him financially and educationally.

Last fall, Nathan, now an eighth grader in the FFA program at TGU-Granville in Granville, brought home a flyer about an FFA trip to Ireland in 2026. His mother, Chris Fredrickson, mentioned to a friend, Ann Olson of Hilltop Farm at Des Lacs, that they were thinking of having Nathan grow and sell sweet corn as an FFA project to raise money. Olson, who is local foods coordinator for Strengthen ND, suggested they join the organization’s Strong Farm Incubator program.

The program provides land and technical assistance to help new growers. Fredrickson said they didn’t need land but the rest of the program sounded interesting, particularly since Nathan has an interest in farming as a vocation. Dennis and Chris Fredrickson farm and ranch near Deering.

Nathan became part of the first Strong Farm Incubator cohort, attending monthly virtual meetings about topics designed to help small farmers through a growing cycle with information such as choosing crop varieties, pest management and weed control.

“There were a lot of things that he had never heard before or thought about,” Fredrickson said.

“And there still is,” Nathan added. He is eligible to keep learning through the three-year program.

Olson, who worked with the Fredrickson family in the incubator program, said the program focused on the Bismarck-Mandan area because of land available nearby at Baldwin, in cooperation with a greenhouse there. However, the Fredricksons were one of two distance participants in the state.

“We help them develop their logo, get their logo registered, register their business name with the state,” Olson said. “In this first year, it’s very basic things. We do give them a small stipend for purchasing seeds or plants.”

Participants continuing in the program receive help in developing their businesses and acquiring their own land if they don’t already have land.

Olson said the 2025 growing season will start the next cohort even as the current cohort continues in the program. Applications are available from Strengthen ND and are due Nov. 1.

Plans are to construct a processing facility that will include a commercial kitchen in Baldwin.

“There will be classroom space in there as well. We’re really excited to have workshops,” Olson said. “And not just open that up to our interns at the incubator farm. We then can have other small growers and producers utilize that space as well, which, I think, is greatly needed in the area.”

Fredrickson said the volume of agricultural information available through the incubator program can be overwhelming to someone as young as Nathan, but what is important is that he begins to hear these things talked about because the more they are talked about, the more things will make sense in the long run.

“And I think that has happened a little bit,” she said. “And it was just also nice to be in a group of other new producers.” She said questions asked by other participants brought to mind items she hadn’t thought about but realized she should be giving thought to in terms of Nathan’s project.

Nathan and his two younger brothers all gained experience in hands-on farming. They learned about the value of ensuring soil quality when a portion of the corn crop failed to thrive. They learned ingenuity in connecting a tripod sprayer and water pump to a tank on the back of a pickup to water corn on dry days. The biggest lesson was simply about hard work.

“It takes a lot of effort to raise some corn. I was out there almost every day,” Nathan said.

“I think the most exciting part was probably when it first sprouted,” he said. “It was growing an inch a day, and some days, it grew two inches a day.”

“We didn’t use any pesticides or herbicides,” Fredrickson said. “We used some regenerative ag techniques, which involved growing our own microbes and brewing them and then putting that back in the soil.”

They sold the sweet corn through personal contacts at the school, social media and sweet corn stands around Minot, in Granville and in Surrey. They sold corn by the dozen, with an extra ear thrown in. They also estimated the number of ears per row and sold by quarter and half rows to customers.

Fredrickson said the harvest is done but they are looking at bundling remaining stalks to sell as fall decorations.

Nathan said he is thinking of checking out other corn varieties to experiment with as well as expand his operation next summer.

“Next year I would like to do some corn and some pumpkins,” he said.

Fredrickson said they also want to look into a drip line irrigation system.

The project finished prepaying the balance of the Ireland trip not already funded by the family and will enable Nathan to continue earning going forward.

“I believe in fundraising but I wanted him to have an opportunity to have something to exchange for funds,” Fredrickson said, adding that she wanted her son to experience ”all of the growth that comes with farming and having to wait and having to do all the things that you need to do in order to get that crop where you can sell it.”

She’s already looking at ways sons Matt, a sixth grader, and Thomas, a third grader, both at TGU-Granville, might have projects of their own eventually, having worked so well with their brother on his acre of corn.

Fredrickson said her family is grateful to Nathan’s FFA adviser, Ashley Bachmeier, and principal, Nicole Welstad, as well as Strengthen ND and all the businesses and individuals who supported Nathan along the way, from providing information and helping procure needed items to providing space for corn sale stands.

Just as important, she said, has been the community’s encouragement and support for a young man’s FFA project, she said.

Nathan said he plans to turn his corn enterprise into an FFA Supervised Agricultural Experience, which means he can continue through high school to further develop his project.

Federal grant supports ag facility in Baldwin

By MDN STAFF

A project that would create a regional processing facility for local foods has received a $675,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration.

Enhancing and Strengthening North Dakota Nonprofits and Communities (Strengthen ND), based in Souris, received the grant to help construct a facility providing classrooms, a commercial kitchen, warehouse space and more in Baldwin, in Burleigh County. The grant is expected to create 47 jobs and generate $1.8 million in private investment, according to grantee estimates.

“North Dakota excels at value-added agriculture,” U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer, R-ND, said in a news release announcing the grant award. “Investments like this drive innovation, boost economic development in our communities, and help families put food on the table. North Dakota stands to gain for many years to come as a result of the construction and use of this facility.”

Strengthen ND reported it also received $300,000 from North Dakota Department of Commerce’s Rural Food Sustainability Grant Program to support the project.

The larger project includes Strengthen ND’s Strong Farm Incubator, which aims to cultivate resilient small farmers, build the local foods ecosystem and increase rural food security. All of these goals will be catalyzed through the construction of the regional local foods processing facility envisioned, according to Strengthen ND.

“It directly supports our theory that the success of rural communities is directly linked to the success of small family farms, and it is being driven by producers in the area,” said Megan Langley, executive director, Strengthen ND.

The hope is to have the processing facility ready by mid to late summer 2025, she said.