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North Dakota State University Extension agent has passion for passing along agricultural knowledge

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LANGDON, N.D. — Bailey Reiser’s rural upbringing inspired her to share agricultural knowledge through the generations.

The 26-year-old North Dakota State University Extension agent for agriculture in Cavalier County, North Dakota, taught agriculture education at Mount Pleasant School District in Rolla, North Dakota, for two years before accepting a position with NDSU in 2022. In her Extension position, she teaches children, teens and adults about a variety of agricultural topics.

Young farmers and ranchers

According to the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture, the average age of American farmers that year was 57.5. Only 9% of farmers were under 35 years old, according to the Census. Agweek and other Forum Communications’ newspapers are highlighting young farmers and ranchers in the industry to look at what the future holds for agriculture.

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Reiser’s passion for agriculture comes from her immersion in it at a young age and being nurtured by her high school agriculture education teacher.

During Reiser’s youth on her parents’ hobby farm near Carrington, North Dakota, she was the caretaker of a variety of animals, including horses, cattle and goats. She learned about production agriculture by spending time with her father, Doug Retzlaff, who worked for a farmer and sold crop seed. She got hands-on exposure riding in the combine and on the tractor with him and watched him interact with farmers during his seed sales.

Reiser’s interest in agriculture grew at Carrington High School where she took agricultural education classes and was in FFA and 4-H.

“I did crop judging and all of the other judging, but crop judging was where I found a little niche,” Reiser said. “I really got inspired to do agronomy or something along those lines.”

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After graduation from Carrington High School in 2015, Reiser attended NDSU where, during her senior year, she decided to become an agricultural education teacher.

She wanted to give youth the same opportunities that her high school agricultural education teacher had offered to her. Besides crop judging, that included volunteer work, fundraising and attending state and national conferences.

A woman in a blue t-shirt and blue jeans kneels in a field.

Bailey Reiser’s job as a North Dakota State University Extension for agriculture in Cavalier County, North Dakota, includes scouting farmers’ fields for insects and disease.

Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension

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Reiser’s high school crop judging experience helped prepare her for her college agronomy classes.

“It gave me that really good base,” she said.

After she graduated from NDSU in the spring of 2020, Reiser taught agriculture education for two years at Mount Pleasant School District in Rolla, North Dakota. She was at the NDSU Extension office in Cavalier County gathering weed pesticide guides for her crops judging students when she learned about an opening for the agricultural agent position.

A woman in a green shirt and tan pants shows a wheat stalk to a girl holding a blue clipboard who is dressed in a khaki shirt and wearing a cap and a girl wearing a gray sweatshirt and holding a clipboard.

Bailey Reiser, North Dakota State University Extension agent for agriculture, Cavalier County, North Dakota, conducted a junior crop scout field day in summer 2023.

Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension Service

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Reiser applied for the position and started working for Extension during the summer of 2022. Her background teaching high school students helped prepare her to give agricultural presentations to farmers and communicate with them during events such as pesticide applicator training, Reiser said.

She also continues to teach agricultural education in her role as NDSU Extension agent for agriculture in Cavalier County through her work with first through eighth-grade students at St. Alphonsus School, a private school, and eighth graders at Langdon Area Schools, a public school.

The two schools don’t have an agriculture education program so her work gives them exposure to a broad range of topics including plant and animal sciences.

“Being able to add agricultural aspects to daily lessons is really good,” Reiser said. For example, in January, one of her lessons at St. Alphonsus was on dairy so she taught the students how to make butter.

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Reiser hopes that her agricultural lessons will spark an interest in students to learn more about agriculture. A couple of students at Langdon Area High School have expressed interest in learning more about agronomy so she plans to connect them with NDSU Extension specialists in the field.

Reiser plans to use her teaching skills to introduce more Extension programs for farmers, such as Annie’s Project, an agricultural leadership program for women. She recently offered a session of “Stop the Bleed,” a farm safety program, which was well-attended and plans to schedule additional sessions.

A woman dressed in a great sweater and black pants stands in front of a classroom.

Bailey Reiser, North Dakota State University Extension Agent for Agriculture in Cavalier County, North Dakota, conducted “Stop the Bleed” training for the public during the winter of 2023-2024.

Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension

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She enjoys the day-to-day work with farmers during the growing season when she heads out to fields to help them with diagnosing crop disease and insect problems. If she doesn’t know the answer, she has a wide variety of resources in Extension who assist her.

The farmers appreciate her work, which she finds rewarding.

“I really like what I do, and you get the excitement and joy from the reactions you get, ‘Thank you for helping me out with this,’” Reiser said.

She looks forward to implementing additional agricultural programs during the next year.

“I learned the ropes this last year — now it’s time to implement some,” she said.

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Ann Bailey

Ann is a journalism veteran with nearly 40 years of reporting and editing experiences on a variety of topics including agriculture and business. Story ideas or questions can be sent to Ann by email at: abailey@agweek.com or phone at: 218-779-8093.





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North Dakota

Letter: Be wary of plans for large-scale dairies in North Dakota

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Letter: Be wary of plans for large-scale dairies in North Dakota


To the editor,

There is a history of confined animal feeding operations ruining the environment in many states. The new

Riverview Dairy

operations set to enter the eastern part of North Dakota near Hillsboro and Wahpeton should be looked at through the eyes of how we want our livestock industry to expand.

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Twenty-five thousand confined dairy cows is huge. Yes, they have state of the art waste disposal systems — or do they? What about flooding? Not unheard of in the Red River Valley. Additionally, the water required for these animals may seem fine but what about in a drought? Do you want to compete for drinking water with cows? Aquifers are being depleted for ag use already.

Twenty-five thousand animals hooked up to machines. Not grazed. Not good.

Workers will be temporary and not connected to the communities. Their money will be sent out of state/country. The money from Riverview will be sent out of the state. Riverview has multiple dairies in other states. Most inputs will be bought wholesale and not locally.

Ag Commissioner Doug Goehring said this LLP can do business without the change to our corporate farming law in the last legislative session. However, they sure are being subsidized by support for infrastructure stemming from other legislation piggy backed on that change in our anti-corporate farming law. A law that was meant to support local farmers to expand by accessing capital from other sources. This dairy will finish the small dairy opportunities in North Dakota using money meant to support them.

Karen Anderson
Warwick, North Dakota

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North Dakota

Yankton County, SD deputies arrest South Dakota fugitive after 4-week search

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Yankton County, SD deputies arrest South Dakota fugitive after 4-week search


YANKTON COUNTY, SD (KTIV) – There’s a new development in a manhunt that started last month in South Dakota.

Authorities in Yankton County say they’ve found an Iowa man wanted for violating his parole and arrested him after a nearly four-hour standoff Monday night.

The Yankton County Sheriff’s Office says its deputies learned 48-year-old Jason Sitzman was inside a home in Lesterville, South Dakota, and went to that home trying to make contact with him.

Sitzman was wanted on warrants for violating his parole in Iowa, as well as, for failure to appear in court in Yankton County and for aggravated eluding of law enforcement.

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But, Sitzman, and another woman who was inside, refused to leave the house. That was at around 7:00pm. Around 10:45pm authorities used chemical agents inside the home to get Sitzman and the woman outside. The woman is identified as 23-year-old Kendra Kirrman.

Both were taken into custody and charged with obstructing law enforcement.

Law enforcement have been looking for Sitzman for more than a month. Back on June 19th… he reportedly fled South Dakota authorities on a motorcycle… riding into Nebraska before ditching the bike at the Chalkrock Wildlife Management Area in Cedar County. Authorities searched the area using drones and a helicopter but weren’t able to find Sitzman.



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North Dakota judge will decide whether to throw out a challenge to the state's abortion ban

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North Dakota judge will decide whether to throw out a challenge to the state's abortion ban


BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Attorneys argued Tuesday over whether a North Dakota judge should toss a lawsuit challenging the state’s abortion ban, with the state saying the plaintiffs’ case rests on hypotheticals, and the plaintiffs saying key issues remain to be resolved at a scheduled trial.

State District Judge Bruce Romanick said he will rule as quickly as he can, but he also asked the plaintiffs’ attorney what difference he would have at the court trial in August.

The Red River Women’s Clinic, which moved from Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota, filed the lawsuit challenging the state’s now-repealed trigger ban soon after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The clinic was North Dakota’s sole abortion provider. In 2023, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature revised the state’s abortion laws amid the lawsuit. Soon afterward, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, joined by doctors in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine.

North Dakota outlaws abortion as a felony crime, with exceptions to prevent the mother’s death or a “serious health risk” to her, and in cases of rape or incest up to six weeks of pregnancy.

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The plaintiffs allege the law violates the state constitution because it is unconstitutionally vague for doctors as to the exceptions, and that its health exception is too narrow.

The state wants the complaint dismissed. Special Assistant Attorney General Dan Gaustad said the plaintiffs want the law declared unconstitutional based upon hypotheticals, that the clinic now in Minnesota lacks legal standing and that a trial won’t help the judge.

“You’re not going to get any more information than what you’ve got now. It’s a legal question,” Gaustad told the judge.

The plaintiffs want the trial to proceed.

Meetra Mehdizadeh, a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the trial would resolve factual disputes regarding how the law would apply in various pregnancy complications, “the extent to which the ban chills the provision of standard-of-care medical treatment,” and a necessity for exceptions for mental health and pregnancies with a fatal fetal diagnosis.

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When asked by the judge about the trial, she said hearing testimony live from experts, as compared to reading their depositions, would give him the opportunity to probe their credibility and ask his own questions to clarify issues.

In an interview, she said laws such as North Dakota’s are causing confusion and hindering doctors when patients arrive in emergency medical situations.

“Nationally, we are seeing physicians feeling like they have to delay, either to run more tests or to consult with legal teams or to wait for patients to get sicker, and so they know if the patient qualifies under the ban,” Mehdizadeh said.

In January, the judge denied the plaintiffs’ request to temporarily block part of the law so doctors could provide abortions in health-saving scenarios without the potential of prosecution.

A recent state report said abortions in North Dakota last year dropped to a nonreportable level, meaning there were fewer than six abortions performed in 2023. The state reported 840 abortions in 2021, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

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The court’s decision enabled states to pass abortion bans by ending the nationwide right to abortion.

Most Republican-controlled states now have bans or restrictions in place. North Dakota is one of 14 enforcing a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Meanwhile, most Democratic-controlled states have adopted measures to protect abortion access.

The issue is a major one in this year’s elections: Abortion-related ballot measures will be before voters in at least six states. Since 2022, voters in all seven states where similar questions appeared have sided with abortion rights advocates.

___

Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this story.

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