Q: Tell me about yourself and your operation.
A: We farm just 30 minutes northwest of Fargo, we’re out by Arthur, ND. It’s me and my dad, Greg Nelson, and my brother-in-law, Adam Kapaun. We farm a little over 6,000 acres and primarily grow corn and soybeans, but we also do a couple of specialty crops like Aronia berries. We’ll dabble in rye and peas and that kind of thing—we don’t do much of it, but we’ve done a few acres here and there throughout the years. We also have two-quarters of alfalfa. Right now they’re alfalfa because we’re probably going to transition those two quarters into organic and start doing a little bit of organic farming as well.
Q: What is the reason behind that move?
A: Markets. Obviously, organic food costs more so you can sell organic grain a lot more expensively. We also have a landlord who’s interested in us turning those quarters into organic. We certified some of our Aronia berries organic as well; because with Aronia berries, there’s not a huge market for them, but there’s a little bit more of a market when you go organic.
Q: You already have the Aronia berry certified as organic, is there more in the process of becoming organic?
A: One of the alfalfa fields is organic, and then the other one will be, I think, next year.
Did You Know?
Alfalfa has a superpower—it’s a natural soil improver. This plant is a legume, which means it can fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. This reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers, making it a favorite among farmers who are looking to enrich their soil naturally
Q: Are the alfalfa fields and Aronia berries all you plan to move to organic right now?
A: Yeah, so the reason it was alfalfa is because it’s hard to grow organic because of the transitional period—it takes three years to become certified. So, if you raise in those three years, organic corn and soybeans, you’d have to sell them at a commercial price, a nonorganic price, until they’re certified. And organic crops don’t yield as high as if you’re going to put [something] like regular commercial corn in there.
So, with alfalfa hay, there’s not many input cost with it, it’s just really the cost of seed, and you can yield pretty well on it in those three years during that transitional period. We’ve found that there’s a pretty good market for organic alfalfa. So, the initial plan was to tear that alfalfa up and then start raising organic wheat, corn, soybeans, and food-grade beans in it; but right now, the alfalfa is working so we haven’t done that yet. When we do, it’s kind of an experiment to see how organic will go. If it seems like it works out well, we might transition some more fields to organic. I don’t think we’ll ever be 100% organic, but we’ll probably do both, and then that way they can subsidize each other.
Q: What has what has that transition process been like?
A: Not really much. We used to farm those two fields commercially, and then we just, in the last couple of years, planted them alfalfa, and then we have a guy that we custom hire him to bale the alfalfa. So, it hasn’t been a real struggle. And alfalfa, like I said, is worth quite a bit, so it’s not like we’ve had to take a hit in income on it.
Q: Are you guys using any sort of cutting-edge technology?
A: We’re using Climate Fieldview to capture all of our data. In the near future, we’re probably going to try to use a little bit more of the John Deere Operations Center, and maybe phase out Climate Fieldview just so everything is seamless in one area since we use John Deere auto steer for everything already. For our planter, we switched that over to Precision. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Precision Planting, but with that, you can control a lot more with your compaction when you’re planting. The planter sees every seed that it puts in the field, so you’re spacing and everything is dead-on—up to 99-100%. And you can watch that as you’re going across the field. Then, if you go to harvest, we put up a new bin site, and in that bin site, we have cables that monitor that inventory and they’ll run the fans. There’s no guesswork in trying to maintain the grain because the cables that we have in there do it for you.
Q: What has been your most successful piece of technology that you’ve adopted, and what’s been the most helpful?
A: On the farm financing side, we started using Harvest Profit a few years ago, that’s a local company, straight out of Fargo. We can figure out our projections, we can punch in all of our inventory that’s onsite, and keep track of every load. I mean, down to the pollens, it uses the grain parts scale to tell you what you brought in and then uses scale tickets from the elevator to tell you what you took out. I mean, I think as far as seeing where we’re at financially for that year, that software has been the biggest help.
Native Superfruit
Unlike many superfruits that are sourced from far-off places, Aronia berries are native to North America, particularly the Midwest. This makes them a sustainable option for local farmers looking to diversify their crops.
Why Organic?
Rapid Growth Sector: The organic farming sector is one of the fastest-growing in U.S. agriculture. Consumers are increasingly looking for organic products, leading to higher premiums for organic crops compared to conventional ones.
Climate Resilience: Organic farming practices often enhance soil health and water retention. This can be particularly beneficial in the Midwest, where weather can be unpredictable and soil erosion a concern.
Support and Resources: For Midwestern farmers interested in transitioning to organic, there are numerous resources and support systems available. Programs like the USDA Organic Certification Cost Share Program can help cover certification costs, and local agricultural extensions often provide guidance on organic practices tailored to the region’s specific conditions.
Everything that we’re using and adding—it just makes the whole farm more successful, but I’ve really enjoyed using harvest profit.
Q: Are there any practices you’ve tried in recent years that didn’t work for you?
A: Off the top of my head, I can’t say that I can think of anything—I mean, everything that you do is new every year. You build off of what you did the year prior. And in farming or, at least rural crop farming, the weather plays a huge role in what you’re trying. Whether it be a new fungicide or if you’re going to try to use some biologicals or something, they might work well in one year and not the other. So it’s hard to say if it didn’t work because the next year it might work well.
We do have one no-till field, and that actually has worked really well for us. I’m not sure why we haven’t put more fields into no-till because it does work well on certain ground. We have grown one that is very similar to that one, that I think it would all work well on. Maybe we’ll do no-till one year, and then the next year, we’ll dig that one up. But there is one field that is strictly no-till, we’ve never worked it up or anything. Mostly, that’s because that field had a lot of rocks in it.
Q: How many years have you been on this farm?
A: I grew up on it, I guess you could say I started full-time when I graduated college in 2015. I came straight to the farm. And then, in 2017, I started taking on some of my own ground. And now, my brother, Adam, who I mentioned earlier, we are 50/50 on our operation, but we work with my dad. So I mean, we all farm 6,000 acres together, but Adam and I are 50/50 on our acres.
Q: Is there anything else you want to say, or you think would be good to know about you or your operation?
A: One other thing that we do with the aronia berries—every year on our farm we do a Harvest Festival in September, and it’s all around those aronia berries. Last year, we saw about 4,500 people come through. We have food trucks and last year we had about 50 different vendors, petting zoos, a corn maze, and all that kind of stuff. It’s just one little thing that makes our farm a little different from anything our neighbors are doing. We do that to raise awareness of what those berries are and what they’re used for. The harvester for those is straight from Poland. So, if you come out to that festival and we do harvest demos, it makes it unique because it’s so different from any other harvest you’d see in North Dakota.
