North Dakota
Legislators get an up-close look to interconnected ag industry of central North Dakota
JAMESTOWN, N.D. — Desiree van Oosting’s first week after being elected to the North Dakota Legislature included a whirlwind look at one of the state’s most important industries: agriculture.
The voters of North Dakota’s District 36 on Nov. 5 elected Van Oosting to represent them in the state Senate. Van Oosting, a Republican from New Salem, grew up on a farm, as did her husband. So while she knew the importance of agriculture to North Dakota, she hadn’t seen some facets of the modern industry up close.
Van Oosting was among a group of new and experienced legislators to take a tour through central North Dakota agriculture on Nov. 8.
The group started off with a behind-the-scenes look at Cavendish Farms, a potato processing plant, before going to the Gayne Gasal farm and feedlot. Lunchtime included a look at North Dakota’s ag economic contribution, and an outlook panel featuring Howard Olson, the senior vice president of government and public affairs for AgCountry Farm Credit Services, along with ag producers Justin Sherlock, of Dazey, Ed Kessel, of Dickinson, and Warren Zenker, of Gackle. After lunch came a walking tour of Dakota Spirit ethanol plant and a bus tour of Green Bison Soy Processing.
For Van Oosting, it was an eye-opening day.
Jenny Schlecht / Agweek
“I haven’t seen any of these places. This is my first tour of the soybean plant, the ethanol plant and Cavendish farms,” she said.
At Cavendish Farms, the group donned hard hats and hair nets to see what happens as potatoes are brought in, washed and processed into a variety of products, including french fries, hash browns and more. At the Gasal farm, they heard about what happens on a corn and soybean farm and walked through a 3,000-head feedlot. And the tours of the ethanol and soybean crush plants gave a better idea at how the state’s biggest crops get turned into feedstocks for fuels, along with other products.
Each stop included opportunities for participants — which also included representatives from ag groups in the state — to ask questions. Topics discussed included the Renewable Fuels Standard, labor and transportation.
“Everything is just so interconnected,” Van Oosting said.
Jenny Schlecht / Agweek
Nowhere was that connection more apparent than at the Gasal farm, where Gayne Gasal, Blayke Gasal and Josh Daulton answered questions and showed everyone around the feedlot. The family has been in the Jamestown area for generations and on the current farm since 1949. Gayne Gasal boasted that the farm no longer is in the farm program, being able to operate without crop insurance or other government programs and payments. The farm grows corn and soybeans, which can be sold at the nearby plants.
The farm is also located near Cavendish Farms, which has put the feedlot sector in a unique position to use byproducts from the processing plants as feeds. The feedlot feeds waste products from Cavendish, along with dried distiller’s grain from Dakota Spirit and waste products of the soybean crush process from Green Bison.
Jenny Schlecht / Agweek
“French fries make good cattle feed,” Gayne Gasal said.
“The feed costs are the key to the operation,” Daulton said.
And all of the manure from the feedlot gets spread back on the fields, where more crops are grown.
The feedlot purchases calves around 500 pounds and feeds them to finish, shipping them to a Tyson plant in Dakota City, Nebraska. Having a beef packing plant closer would certainly be helpful for transportation costs, the Gasals and Daulton said. The size of finished cattle means the cost per head to truck to Nebraska gets steep.
“Trucking would be significantly better,” Daulton said.
Infrastructure was a big takeaway for Van Oosting.
“What I’m hearing today is the importance of roads and infrastructure for these businesses that bring in a lot of product to the soybean plant, the potatoes to Cavendish farms,” she said. “Learning a lot, especially as a freshman.”
Over lunchtime, the group heard from Matt Perdue, government relations director for North Dakota Farmers Union, about what ag means to North Dakota, including that the industry supports 110,480 jobs in the state. While researchers at North Dakota State University who completed a study on
ag’s economic contribution to North Dakota
, wouldn’t say that ag is the “largest driver of employment in the state,” Perdue said, “that is probably a fair assumption.”
Jenny Schlecht / Agweek
While the industry’s success means a lot to the state, there have been struggles in recent years. Olson, Sherlock, Zenker and Kessel discussed low grain prices and high input costs. Olson stressed that things aren’t as bad as the 1980s, when high interest rates and low prices were devastating to many family farms. But the problems are very real.
“We’ve got commodity prices that have dropped considerably the last two years, input costs have come down a little bit, but they still remain very high, and we find many of our farmers are in a net-loss situation this year where they’re losing money,” Olson said. “When you have those kinds of losses, they’re burning through their working capital. They’re burning through their cash. Now they have to figure out, how am I going to rebuild that working capital?”
While Sherlock said he might lose $300,000 this year — money that he says he “tucked away” over past years of better prices and high government payments — he said there are important things in North Dakota that make the future of agriculture look positive.
“Because of the Bank of North Dakota and some of the groundwork laid in the past” he said he can afford advancements like drain tiling that should make his land more productive in the future.
He and Kessel also talked about the importance of having value-added opportunities in the state, like the North Dakota State Mill’s white wheat program and ethanol and soybean plants. Domestic demand is vital, Sherlock said, pointing out that during the
trade war in 2018-19
, “50% of the revenue on my farm had nowhere to go.”
While
cattle prices
have been a bright spot in the ag market, Zenker, who has a cow-calf and feeder operation, compared equipment costs as an illustration that it’s still tough to make a profit. In the mid-’90s, he bought a new baler for $14,000. That was when a 500-pound calf brought about 40 cents per pound. Now, with like-sized calves bringing well over $3 per pound, his new baler cost $70,000.
“That 500-pound calf is not going to pay for that baler,” Zenker said.
A big talking point in the state in recent legislative sessions has been about expanding animal agriculture in North Dakota, which lags nearby states in livestock numbers. Zenker said lack of end processing remains an obstacle, with freight charges lingering around $60 per head, but he’s not sure whether communities in North Dakota would accept the changes that come with a processing plant. Sherlock suggested that a government entity should take the lead on looking into factors keeping animal agriculture in the state from growing.
In closing remarks to legislators, Kessel said lawmakers should keep regulations friendly to agriculture. Zenker agreed and said property tax relief also is important. Sherlock said things like working toward helping ensure affordable daycare are important.
“We’ve got to keep our small communities livable,” he said.
After the tours were finished, Olson said it is important to “help (legislators) get a better understanding of production agriculture, what we’ve got going on, the uphill battles that our farmers always face.” Showing them the importance of what value-added agriculture means for producers and the state is vital, he said.
“We’re so dependent on our export markets, whether it’s foreign exports or even just export out of the state. If we can be processing that product here and send it out in components, or feed it in the livestock and send it out as meat instead of meal, that’s just so much better for our agriculture,” he said.
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
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