Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Which numbers are more difficult to remember: the birth dates of his twelve grandchildren or others realizing the value of agriculture in his state? Likely the later.
“Agriculture is still the number one industry in the state,” North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring told American Farmland Owner from his office in Bismarck.
Goehring hopes that people in his home state and those outside the border now better understand what comes out of the soil.
A new report led by the North Dakota State University Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics and the Center for Social Research and various agriculture groups compiled new figures of how valuable the state’s agriculture is.
Gross annual business volume: $41.3 billion
Jobs supported: 123,360
Labor income: $10 billion
The rise in that first figure was helped by two new soybean processing plants in Spiritwood and Casselton. When a previous report came out in 2022 – before those new crush plants opened – the gross annual business volume was $30.8 billion.
Last fall, the $400 million North Dakota Soybean Processors plant in Casselton opened about a year after the $350 million Green Bison plant in Spiritwood. Doug Burgum, who was North Dakota’s governor at the time, said that the two plants would have capacity to process half the state’s soybeans.
RELATED: The North Dakota Monitor looked at how the two crush plants have changed the soybean industry in the state that once exported most of its crops. Read that here.
KFYR-TV in Bismarck, North Dakota, has this story on the Green Bison plant and how its 150,000 bushel crush capacity annually would benefit local farmers and elevators.
Goehring, who grew up on a small farm about 20 miles outside Bismarck, has served as ag commissioner since 2009. He celebrates the agricultural diversity of his state and can tick off the crops as easily as the names of all those Goehring grandchildren:
Spring wheat (number one in the nation)
Durum wheat (number one in the nation)
Sunflower, non-oil (number one in the nation)
Sunflower, oil (number one in the nation)
All dry edible beans (number one in the nation)
Pinto beans (number one in the nation)
Rye (number one in the nation)
Oats (number one in the nation)
Canola (number one in the nation)
Flaxseed (number one in the nation)
Honey (number one in the nation)
Pink beans, small red beans, barley, lentils, dry edible peas, sugar beets, black beans, navy beans and chickpeas (all within the top four in the nation)
(Source: North Dakota Department of Agriculture)
RELATED: North Dakota’s former governor, Doug Burgum, briefly ran for president in 2023. He is now the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. This Associated Press story looked at how Burgum could help expand oil and gas production.
“It's pretty amazing how much agriculture drives the nation's economy…drives our communities…drives our our state's economy,” Goehring said.
And he thinks that many people don’t know how much agriculture physically covers the state. “Ninety percent of our land in North Dakota is either owned, operated, or managed by farmers and ranchers, so it makes us one of the most ‘ag-y’ states in the Midwest,” he said.
With agriculture the top industry for the state and energy production the second, they have Goehring optimistic about the new federal administration and hopes for reduced regulation and permits to reduce bureaucratic slowdowns.
RELATED: The USDA recognized North Dakota as the top Farm to School program in the Mountain Plains Region (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming). See that recognition here.
