North Dakota

With a failed ballot measure that sought changes to the state’s decades-old corporate farming law in the rear-view mirror, a potentially lengthy federal court battle over its legality has arisen.

A farm aid nonprofit is launching an effort to deliver donated hay to ranchers in flood-stricken Nebraska, resurrecting a program first used nearly two years ago to help cattle producers facing drought conditions.

Crops and pastures continue to suffer in North Dakota as drought persists.

Trish Schneider, of Burt, N.D., is looking for all the hay she can get this years as she deals with a poor hay crop of her own and has to feed 150 cows this winter. She is haying Conservation Reserve Program acres to help pick up some more tonnage.

A regional nonprofit group that plants crops for farmers in need in the spring and harvests crops in the fall is now adding some summertime work.

North Dakota farmers are still trying to harvest last year’s crop while running out of time to plant this year. RRFN and Advance Trading did a boots on the ground tour, reporting on the challenges they saw.

The sugar beet harvest in North Dakota is expected to be up 11 percent this year.

USDA reports this week it expects more than 9 million acres of prevent plant for 2020. This comes during a time when the department is calling for record yields for the corn and soybean crops.