North Dakota agriculture. One of our state’s largest industries, agriculture represents and encompasses much of our rich heritage and culture. In fact, almost 25% of our workforce is employed by agriculture, and 90% of our land is used to support it.

This diverse and vibrant industry produces a wide array of products, used here and around the world, thanks largely to the hard work and use of efficient production practices by our 26,000 farmers and ranchers. North Dakota is a top producer in the nation for many crops such as dry edible beans, canola, flaxseed, honey, dry edible peas, durum, spring wheat, lentils, rye, sunflower, barley, oats, sugarbeets, chickpeas, potatoes and soybeans.

While production agriculture is a major part of the industry, North Dakota boasts many value-added processors in the state. Value-added processors make changes to primary agriculture products that increase the product’s value and drive the economy.

Facilities in the state include the following: five dairy processors, 47 dry bean processors, five ethanol plants, 60 food and commodity export companies, frozen foods plants, a malting plant, corn wet-milling, approximately 100 meat processors, pasta plants in Carrington and Minot, potato processing in Grand Forks and Jamestown, 6 pulse processors, specialized milling in Minot, Harvey and Grand Forks, 4 sugar processors and crush facilities in Velva and Enderlin.

With the tremendous amount of commodities produced in the state, there is an opportunity to establish more value-added processors. Developing infrastructure would help attract these processors. Two such facilities in the works include soybean processing plants in Spiritwood and Casselton. Facilities like these make sense in a state like North Dakota as a top 10 producer of soybeans in the nation.

The Spiritwood facility will process up to 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day and supply vegetable oil as a feedstock to Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s renewable diesel refinery in Dickinson to produce up to 75 million gallons of renewable diesel annually, along with meal and fiber that will be used for livestock feed. The facility should be ready by harvest of 2023.

The Casselton facility will crush approximately 42.5 million bushels of soybeans in the first year and produce food-grade soybean oil and meal. The oil may go into the food industry or be turned into renewable fuel. The meal will likely be used as a livestock feed. The facility expects to be running by 2024.

Byproducts such as livestock feed put us in a good position to add a lot of value to the state if we further develop animal agriculture and take it to the next level. Animal agriculture is value-added agriculture and is complementary to our farmers.

North Dakota has the feedstock, biosecure environment and the need for manure to make animal agriculture a good fit. Animal agriculture would utilize byproducts from value-added processors and provide an additional market for grain producers, which would in turn reduce the rail service required for our grain industry. For example, a 6,000-head pig finishing farm would use 5,200 tons of feed annually and approximately 148,000 bushels of corn and 950 tons of soybean meal. The demand for local crops will lower the basis cost, increasing prices, and we would have less need for commercial fertilizer for those crops as farmers could use the manure from animal agriculture for their fields to keep the plant nutrient cost down, improve soil health and create a resilient production system. It’s a great way to diversify North Dakota agriculture.

Both value-added processors and animal agriculture facilities would utilize the many crops we produce right here in the state and add more value in the bottom line of every commodity. Both mean increased rural economic activity and job creation for our state. It’s a win-win for North Dakota.