Submitted Photo North Dakota farmer Joanna Larson has launched her own operation along her family's land with a vision for getting more locally grown food to Main Street. Photo from Prairie Gates.

SHEYENNE – Farmers are often encouraged to be good stewards of the land and provide consumers with healthy foods. A North Dakota producer who grew up on a family farm says she’s making the most of her resources, with the hopes of transforming local supply chains.

In the state’s Sheyenne River Valley, fourth-generation farmer Joanna Larson, owner and operator of Prairie Gates Farm, raises vegetables, beef and wholesale flowers on her family’s farm and ranch. Having been surrounded by commodity agriculture during her youth, she’s inspired to steer this land in a new direction – a direction that calls back to a time before row crops dominated farm fields around the country.

“How can we kind of get back to an agriculture system that serves our community and our environment and our animals and our people,” she said.

Larson said she’s not trying to single out larger operations. Instead, she said she feels it’s more about seizing opportunity. When returning to her family’s land after going to college for agriculture, she saw a window to weave in more sustainability. Through composting or borrowing equipment to aid practices such as rotational grazing, Larson is turning out organic products she’s directly marketing to the surrounding community.

Larson said her plans to close local supply chains involve opening a brick-and-mortar store this spring, with fresh products from her site and other local farms.

“Our town hasn’t had a grocery store in over 20 years, and (I’m) really excited about that,” she said. “That really kind of speaks to what my vision is for making things a little more local.”

Larson said there’s a lot of pressure on family farms to stay afloat, but she’s happy to be figuring it out as she goes in the place where it all started for her, “trying to have diverse revenue streams coming into the farm,” she said, “and trying to protect what’s there for the next generation. And my folks and I share that vision.”