North Dakota
North Dakota State University Extension agent has passion for passing along agricultural knowledge
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.
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.”
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.
Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension
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.
Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension Service
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.
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.
Contributed / North Dakota State University Extension
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.
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.
(Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)
(North Dakota Monitor) – The cost of the power line and substation needed by a data center north of Fargo has risen from $75 million to $110 million, but developers say the data center company will still cover the entire cost of the project.
Applied Digital needs the project to power its data center being built between Fargo and Harwood. The data center requires 280 megawatts of power at peak demand.
Applied Digital will pay for the project but it will be owned by Grand Forks based, Minnkota Power Cooperative.
The North Dakota Public Service Commission held a hearing in Fargo on what is known as the Agassiz Transmission Line and Substation.
Activists steal wax figure of Emmanuel Macron
Greenpeace activists stole a wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron to protest France’s trade with Russia.
Greenpeace has asked for a second trial after a judge entered a $345 million judgment against the organization in a landmark case brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The case “threatens to result in one of the largest miscarriages of justice in North Dakota’s history,” attorneys for the environmental group wrote in a brief filed last week.
After a three-week trial roughly a year ago, a Morton County jury directed Greenpeace to pay Energy Transfer about $667 million, finding the environmental group at fault for inciting illegal acts against the company during anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017 and for publishing false statements that harmed Energy Transfer’s reputation.
Greenpeace denies Energy Transfer’s claims and maintains that it brought the lawsuit to hurt the environmental movement.
Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion in October slashed the jury’s award to $345 million, though he didn’t finalize the award until late February.
Greenpeace is now taking steps to fight the judgment, which includes its motion for a new trial.
The environmental group’s reasons for the request include claims that the jury instructions and verdict form contained errors, and that Energy Transfer was allowed to present unfair and irrelevant evidence to jurors. The group also alleges the jury pool was biased.
Greenpeace says the jury’s award assumes that Greenpeace was entirely responsible for any injury Energy Transfer sustained related to the protests. Jurors were not given the opportunity to consider whether Greenpeace was only at fault for a portion of the damages, the organization wrote in its brief.
Attorneys for Greenpeace also referenced the mailers and other media circulated to Mandan and Bismarck residents before the trial that contained anti-Dakota Access Pipeline protest and pro-energy industry content.
The environmental group seeks a new trial in Cass County, arguing in part that the jury pool in the Fargo area would be more fair because its residents did not directly experience the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and because the local economy is less dependent on the energy industry.
If Greenpeace’s request for a new trial is denied, it plans to appeal the case to the North Dakota Supreme Court, the organization has said.
Greenpeace previously asked for the trial to be moved from Morton County to Cass County in early 2025, which Gion and the North Dakota Supreme Court denied.
The lawsuit is against three separate Greenpeace organizations — Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund.
Energy Transfer as of Wednesday morning had not submitted a response to Greenpeace’s motion for a new trial. Previously, the company has defended the jury’s verdict and disputed Greenpeace’s claims that the court proceedings were not fair.
Energy Transfer has indicated it may appeal Gion’s decision to reduce the award to $345 million.
Greenpeace will not have to pay any of the $345 million judgment for at least a couple of months, Gion ruled Tuesday.
Court documents indicate that the organization could have to pay a bond of up to $25 million while appeals proceed, though the environmental group has asked the judge to waive or reduce this amount. Gion has not decided on this motion.
He noted that obtaining such a large bond will be challenging.
“The magnitude of this matter defies simple decisions,” Gion wrote.
Energy Transfer in court filings urged the judge to require Greenpeace to post the full $25 million.
Any bond money Greenpeace provides would be held by a third party while the appeals proceed, according to Greenpeace USA.
Greenpeace International has filed a separate lawsuit in the Netherlands that accuses Energy Transfer of weaponizing the U.S. legal system against the environmental group. Energy Transfer asked Gion to order that the overseas suit be paused while the North Dakota case is still active, which Gion denied. The company appealed his ruling to the North Dakota Supreme Court, which has yet to make a decision on the matter.
North Dakota Monitor is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
BISMARCK, ND (KXNET) — Drivers in parts North Dakota are being urged to use caution as drifting snow continues to impact road conditions.
According to the National Weather Service, strong northwest winds are creating areas of blowing and drifting snow.
That snow is sticking to previously plowed roadways, leading to slick and potentially hazardous travel conditions.
The advisory includes Burleigh County, Emmons County, Kidder County, Logan County, and McIntosh County.
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