The Future of Agriculture In North Dakota

By David B. Danbom

The history of North Dakota agriculture is virtually synonymous with the history of the state.¹ Throughout history, agriculture has been our dominant occupation and our main producer of wealth. Directly or indirectly, it has engaged the energies of most of our people. It has been crucial in shaping our society, our institutions, and our values. Our political role, within the state and on the national level, has also reflected the primacy of agriculture in our lives.

Because agriculture and North Dakota are so inextricably intertwined, Elwyn Robinson’s themes apply to the former with especial relevance. Remoteness from major markets has shaped and limited North Dakota agriculture historically. We have always been dependent on outsiders for the capital, services, and subsidies which determine our agricultural production and marketing. Together, remoteness and dependence on others have put us at an economic disadvantage, and agrarian radicalism has been one periodic response. More than others, farmers have struggled with a difficult and at times forbidding environment. As they have adjusted to that environment they have exposed various facets of the "Too-Much Mistake" — too many farms, too many acres broken, too many market towns, too many country schools and churches, too many counties, too much of everything except money.

One would be hard-pressed today to find a knowledgeable North Dakotan who would not agree that the state’s economy will still be predominantly agricultural in one hundred years. Not all are enthusiastic about that fact — and those who favor accelerated economic development through industrialization are downright rueful about it — but it is a point on which there is universal agreement. A century ago attitudes were very different. Boosters saw North Dakota as another Wisconsin or even Illinois, a state in which agriculture was important but in which industry was also vital. In 1889, one could believe whatever he or she wished. After all, the state’s history was just beginning. Now we are more realistic — perhaps fatalistic — and more resigned to our apparent fate. History has not fulfilled the promise North Dakota boosters mapped out. We see ourselves today shaped by our history, not shaping it in important ways.

The belief of North Dakotans that their agricultural past will flow into their agricultural future obscures the tremendous alterations in the farming enterprise over the past century. In 1889 farm sizes were small and getting smaller. Eventually there would be 80,000 farms in the state, and they would average less than three-quarters of a section in size. Today there are barely 30,000 farms, and they average about two sections in size. At the time of statehood the average farm relied on human and animal muscle power to produce a living. Today sophisticated, petroleum-fueled machinery and a range of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are considered essential for production. One hundred years ago North Dakota was overwhelmingly a wheat state. Today it is remarkably diverse, producing economically significant quantities of more crops than any other state save for California. In 1889 government policies had little effect on what farmers did. In 1989, Washington shapes many of their decisions. A century ago agriculture supported a vital local institutional life. Today, the institutions and communities of rural North Dakota are dying. When North Dakota achieved statehood there were dramatic differences between farm and townspeople. The former were relatively uneducated and unsophisticated. They looked, dressed, and acted differently, and they often spoke a language other than English. Today the differences have been largely obliterated.

What we have here is an apparent paradox. The state was predominantly agricultural in 1889 and still is today, and most observers agree that it will be in 2089 as well. And yet agricultural production, economic structure, rural life, and every other aspect of the farm has been revolutionized over the last century. We have a static external reality — agriculture — that has been subject to tremendous internal dynamism. As we project this enterprise into the next century, we must keep both its unchanging nature and its dynamic quality in mind.

The first temptation which comes to one who is asked to project the progress of an enterprise over the next century is simply to extrapolate from the trends of the previous century. That is the legitimate, safe and reasonable thing to do, given the fact that human affairs are largely — if not totally — shaped by realities rooted in history and will continue to be so shaped. In general, the future of agriculture in North Dakota can reasonably be seen as an extension of , and elaboration on, its past. However, it is important to note at the outset that there are at least three major potential disruptive factors — all beyond our control to a greater or lesser degree — that could change the direction of North Dakota agriculture dramatically.

The first of these wild cards is government policy. During our entire experience as a state and a nation, the United States has been a democratic country that has emphasized the maintenance of individual liberty and a capitalistic economic system. A revolutionary alteration of that status, resulting in the creation of some sort of authoritarian system, would obviously have serious implications for North Dakota agriculture and for the choices farmers could make.

More likely is a change in government policies within the existing system. Since before North Dakota became a state, the Federal government has pursued policies which generally point to the encouragement of production. Government support for agricultural education and science, beginning on a major scale with the Morrill Land-Grand College Act of 1862, has had that general purpose. Government price support and acreage limitation programs, beginning with the Agriculture Adjustment Act in 1933, ostensibly had the purpose of elevating farm incomes. In fact, they have had the effect of helping to reshape the structure of agriculture by lavishing benefits on farmers who have the ability to produce — or not produce — the most, i.e., the largest, most commercial, and most efficient farmers.

Federal farm programs have been durable, but they have had few enthusiastic defenders. They are expensive and complicated, they operate to the detriment of small producers, and they exacerbate the surplus program they are supposed to solve. It is thus conceivable that new programs will replace these unsatisfactory ones. One possible substitute is a program that subsidizes rural people simply for being rural, or that provides farmers with income supplements rather than commodity and acreage-based payments. Such programs could dramatically restructure agriculture and revitalize rural institutional life, but political realities inside and outside of agriculture make it extremely unlikely that such changes could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Our farm programs do not do what they promised, but they do benefit politically powerful segments of the agricultural sector.

A more likely shift in farm programs, as the United States comes to grips with its status as a debtor nation, is toward the encouragement of exports. This could be done either by putting agriculture on a free trade basis through elimination of crop loans and acreage limitations, or by providing farm subsidies on the basis of export volume, perhaps with cost of production factored in — more or less as Canada does today. The words "free market" ring nicely in the ears of many farmers, but the North Dakotan of 1889 knew that they meant dramatic price fluctuation and uncertain prosperity. Some sort of export subsidy program is more likely and would be more palatable. In any event, while both are possibilities, neither could be expected to alter the structure of North Dakota agriculture dramatically.

perhaps with cost of production factored in — more or less as Canada does today. The words "free market" ring nicely in the ears of many farmers, but the North Dakotan of 1889 knew that they meant dramatic price fluctuation and uncertain prosperity. Some sort of export subsidy program is more likely and would be more palatable. In any event, while both are possibilities, neither could be expected to alter the structure of North Dakota agriculture dramatically.

The second set of wild cards involves changing domestic and international production and consumption patterns. The production practices of our competitors already affect us. The Green Revolution has made it possible for many countries that once imported grain to become self=sufficient and event to produce surpluses for export. At the same time, quality improvements in winter wheats produced in the Central Plains have eroded an important, traditional advantage of our hard red spring wheats. It is prudent to assume that these threatening competitive trends will continue, but of course there is no assurance that they will. It is conceivable that changing production patterns elsewhere, resulting from unforeseen economic or environmental and climatic changes, might actually improve the competitive position of North Dakota agriculture.

Consumption patterns are also difficult to predict. Throughout most of recorded history people have eaten bread, and it is probable, though by no means certain, that they will continue to do so. But what about sugar, beef, or pork, for example? It is possible that none of these North Dakota products will be produced in a century, though, again, it is possible that they will be in greater demand. Butter and flax were once major North Dakota products. The former fell out of public favor due to health concerns and the competition of margarine. Petroleum-based paints, varnishes, and floor coverings doomed the latter to the status of minor crop. What happened to butter and flax could happen to any other North Dakota product.

The last and potentially most important set of wild cards involves sustainability. As is true with agriculture elsewhere in the United States, North Dakota’s agricultural production is heavily dependent on petroleum. We were reminded in the seventies that an agricultural system dependent on a finite resource is vulnerable. This is not to say that we cannot, or will not, develop a more sustainable system. It is possible to produce fuels from renewable sources. Someday we may see grain crops that can fix their own nitrogen, cultivars with natural resistance to insects, and other products of agricultural science which will reduce our dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Still, it would be unwise to ignore or wish away the threat our dependence on non-renewable resources presents to agriculture.

Destructive natural pests present another possible threat to our ability to maintain agricultural production. Historically, parasitic organisms — the most important of which has been wheat stem rust — and voracious insects have harmed North Dakota crops. Instances exist in world history in which destructive fungi, insects, and parasites have made it impossible to produce certain crops and animals in some areas. Today we have an alert and active scientific community that possesses many tools to counter real and potential natural dangers. Still, there is infinite variety in the natural world, and human beings can never achieve true invulnerability to all of nature’s turns and twists.

The most serious threat to agricultural sustainability involves potential changes in the environment and in the earth’s climate. As yet, we do not know for certain how, or even if, such phenomena as the depletion of the ozone layer, acid rain, or salinization of soils might affect our agriculture, but all of them loom on the horizon. We also need to think about the possible impact on North Dakota agriculture of the "greenhouse effect" and the subsequent warming of the earth, which many scientists believe, is occurring. The resulting climatic changes could benefit North Dakota and weaken its competitors, or it could turn the state into a desert. Massive climatic changes pose the most serious threat to our agricultural system, not because they are the most likely changes but because they would require the most extreme adjustments.

I now propose to look at four major areas of North Dakota agriculture — its economic structure, its production methods, its relationship to the local economy, and the nature of rural life. I will analyze each of these areas historically and make some suggestions regarding what the future might hold. Throughout what follows, however, the reader should keep in mind that the wildcards I discussed above, or others I cannot foresee, might alter my projections dramatically.

Some of the most striking changes in the history of North Dakota agriculture have involved its economic structure. Barely fifty years ago the state had about 80,000 farms. The average farm had about 480 acres, was not heavily capitalized, and was run by a family that was striving to be as self-sufficient as it could be. Today we have fewer than half as many farms and their average size is three times as great. Hundreds of thousands — even millions — of dollars are commonly invested in land and machinery, and tens of thousands are poured into the production of yearly crops. The average farm is totally commercial, and it is the rare family which attempts to achieve self-sufficiency. The North Dakota farm, which used to be mainly a home, has, with increasing frequency, become a substantial business.

This development has worried many North Dakotans, who see the "family farm" slipping away, and the state has taken a number of steps to prevent or at least slow the change. As usual, our efforts have been ineffective mainly because the causes of the changing structure of agriculture lie outside our state’s borders. Two factors, especially, have altered the structure of North Dakota agriculture. First, modern machinery and chemicals have made it possible for individuals to handle more land and to minimize the risks of agricultural production. Second, government programs have disproportionately benefited large farmers, artificially inflated land values, encouraged specialization, and provided income stability to producers of basic commodities.

Unless we de-mechanize, dramatically change our farm programs, or suffer some cataclysmic national economic disaster, the tendency toward fewer and larger farms probably will not be reversed. There are a couple of other reasons why this trend will not be altered. First, high costs of land make it difficult for a new farmer to acquire a farm, and the cost-price situation makes it hard for her or him to pay it off. Consequently, most land is sold to established farmers with substantial financial assets. Second, people on small farms are willing to give them up because these operations do not, by themselves, generate enough income to provide what most modern North Dakotans see as an acceptable standard of living. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that in 2089 we will have fewer farms, they will be larger, more heavily capitalized, and more commercial. I would not be so foolish as to predict numbers, but I cannot see a change in the general direction in which we have been moving.

Another area in which dramatic changes have occurred over the last century has been in agricultural production. In 1889 North Dakota was a hard red spring wheat state and, to a lesser extent, a beef state. While North Dakota farmers were remarkably productive for the times, yields of twenty-five bushels per acre were rare, and in many years average acre yields were ten bushels or even less.

Today, we have a very different situation. North Dakota farmers market more different crops in significant amounts that farmers in forty-eight other states. Hard red spring wheat remains king, but barley, durum, flax, sugar beets, potatoes, soybeans, dry edible beans, sunflower seeds, and other cultivars as well are produced in impressive quantities. Beef remains the leading livestock product, but North Dakotans also produce pork, dairy products, and honey in impressive volumes. Yields for all significant crops have increased dramatically. Wheat farmers today are disappointed with fewer than fifty bushels per acre, and what would have been bumper crops a century ago are now considered disasters.

Many factors have brought about changes in agricultural production. Diversification has resulted mainly from the ongoing efforts of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and the United States Department of Agriculture to identify and develop appropriate new crops for the state. Innovative farmers have then grown these new crops. In partnership, agricultural scientists and farmers have done much to minimize the income instability which resulted from over-dependence on wheat. Production has increased in part because of the introduction of better-yielding, more pest-resistant varieties of a number of crops, and in part because of mechanization, which allows more timely farm operations. More important than either of these factors in increasing yields, however, have been chemical fertilization and pest management.

Casual observers believe that the agricultural production of the future will be ever more dependent on technological miracles. One hears talk o control of photosynthesis, seed laid down by airplanes in biodegradable strips that include fertilizer and pesticides, plastic ground coverings to conserve moisture and perhaps allow two crops per year, and so forth. While some of these developments may become, or are already technically feasible, their cost is prohibitive and will remain so in the foreseeable future.

Historically, unit price has been more of a problem for North Dakota farmers than has productivity, and there is no compelling reason to believe that reality will change. The technologies that have resulted in dramatic increases in production over the last fifty years have pretty much fulfilled their potential. While new chemicals, improved machinery, and conventional crop breeding might bring marginal increases in yield, nothing very dramatic can be expected form those quarters.

Two possible breakthroughs do exist that could potentially increase yields in a dramatic fashion. A hybrid wheat, the practicality of which remains unproven, could as much as double yields of North Dakota’s premier crop. Biotechnology offers intriguing possibilities, but at this point no more than that. A century from now the average farmer could be growing high-yielding, nitrogen-fixing, disease-and-insect resistant, high-protein wheat specifically designed for the conditions of his or her farm, all through the wonders of biotechnology. That is the dream, but there is a substantial gap between it and present reality.

One constant on which I believe we can continue to depend is that diversification will remain characteristic of successful North Dakota farmers. The purpose of diversification will never again be the attainment of self-sufficiency, which it was a century ago. Today farmers diversify in a commercial context, as a means of stabilizing incomes and buffering themselves from price swings in single commodities. It is hard to predict what North Dakota farmers will be growing in 2089 — who a century ago could have predicted what they are growing today? — but we can be sure that if they remain innovative and progressive and flexible they will be on the alert for new crops which can help them improve their incomes and gain a competitive advantage.

It is common for people who are optimistic about the technical aspects of agriculture to talk in terms of more and better. The future, they assure us, will be one of more and better machinery, techniques, crops, and production. What they sometimes forget is that the remarkable changes agriculture has undergone in the last half century have been accompanied by substantial human costs. Depopulation, rural economic stagnation, deterioration of rural social institutions, disappointed hopes and shattered dreams have been some of the unwelcome side effects of the agricultural revolution. There is no reason to doubt that these unfortunate developments will continue to be with us as the next century unfolds.

The market towns, school districts, county governments, and country churches of rural North Dakota have been suffocating slowly for half a century, mainly as a result of the continual and at times dramatic slide in farm population. At one time, over 400,000 people lived on farms in North Dakota. Today, barely 100,000 live on farms. The decline is directly related to agricultural change. Part of it is due to the fact that there are less than half as many farms as there were half a century ago. Farm consolidation is largely the result of technological developments that allow fewer people to farm more land effectively. Part of the decline is due to the shrinking size of the farm family, which is now only slightly larger on average that the non-farm family in North Dakota. Farmers using modern machinery and methods need less family labor than they once needed. The economic structure of modern agriculture renders them less able to provide farms for their children. As a result of these two realities there has been a conscious limitation of family size.

There is no question that 400,000 people could not live on North Dakota farms today and enjoy an American standard of living. Where 100,000 now live in relative comfort, 400,000 would live in poverty. But the erosion of farm population has been costly to the rural community. It has meant a dramatic decline in the number of potential patrons for local schools, taxpayers to support county government, and parishioners for country churches. There has been a stunning drop in the number of customers for local merchants and professionals. Farm customers are more affluent, but even that is a mixed blessing when their affluence allows them to drive past the local retail center on their way to a shopping mall fifty or one hundred miles away.

Rural revitalization is one of the oldest and most frustrating quests in our state’s history. We grasp at whatever straws of hope appear. Temporary rises in rural population — or even declines in the rate of depopulation — stimulate our optimism. A new plant manufacturing pasta or potato chips reminds us of the potential for economic development related to agriculture. A plucky town which re-opens a café or puts up a mini-mall excites our admiration.

Industrial development has long been rural North Dakota’s holy grail, and enough individual towns have benefited from agribusiness or crop processing facilities to make it seem attainable. But in its quest for industry rural North Dakota suffers from some serious disadvantages. Distances to markets, remoteness, lack of local capital, and shortages of skilled labor are among the factors that impede the local industrialization for which we hope. It is also the case that nationally the industrial sector is declining. These factors render it unlikely that industrialization will be the salvation of rural North Dakota.

There is more hope for rural revitalization in other developments. North Dakota’s cities are growing, and rural areas within commuting distance of large centers are thriving. Moreover, one can foresee that some areas of rural North Dakota will flourish as service centers if and when a greater measure of stability comes to the energy industry. It is also possible that rural people, including farm people, will someday enjoy greater opportunities to do task-oriented work in their homes. It is not inconceivable, for example, that rural North Dakotans may someday supplement their incomes by processing data on computer terminals in their homes for corporations outside of the state. Many have the time and technical abilities, and this great human resource may eventually be recognized and used. At best, though, it is likely that such developments will only prevent a further decline of the rural population. What has been lost will not likely be recovered.

It is only prudent to predict that towns and school districts and county governments and churches will continue to depend mainly on local farm people, and that is the problem. School districts will find it difficult to maintain the size necessary for viability, and to provide the type of education necessary in the modern world. District consolidation is an answer, but not a happy one for communities losing a local school. Churches face a similar problem, as do county governments, which will probably be forced to consider more measures involving consolidation of services with other counties. Most market towns can expect continued economic stagnation, punctuated mainly by crises when local elevators or schools close down or when branch rail lines are abandoned. Ironically, the technical progress of North Dakota agriculture has made local support institutions superfluous. We hope that melancholy reality will change but we have no compelling evidence to buttress our hope.

There is one area in which most of the change which is likely to take place has already occurred, and that is the realm of rural living. One hundred years ago — even fifty years ago — rural living was very different from the way it is today. Most rural North Dakotans lived on farmsteads from which they seldom strayed. People would go to the local church and school and the little market town, and perhaps once a year they would go to some major center such as Williston or Minot or Grand Forks. Few people traveled beyond the local area, and few young people attended college or even high school. The local community was the center of a vigorous social life. Lodge and farm organization meetings, church suppers, spelling matches at the schools, quilting, barn raising, and hunting and fishing with neighbors provided social lives that could be quite rich.

On their farmsteads, North Dakotans of the bygone era struggled to be as self-sufficient as possible within a commercial context. They raised livestock and poultry, canned vegetables, and so forth. Creature comforts were primitive. Electricity was a rarity until after World War II, outdoor privies were the rule, and most people drew water from the ground with hand pumps. Finally, there were sharp distinctions between town and country cultural and living standards. Rural people looked, dressed, and talked differently from people in towns and cities. They were from a different world, and the differences showed.

The differences between rural life today and fifty or one hundred years ago are profound. Farm families are no longer tied to farmsteads. Indeed, farmers increasingly live in town and drive out to their farms much as non-farm families no. Their children are as likely to go to high school and college. They think nothing of driving many miles to a major town to shop or eat or see a show.

The insularity of the rural community has broken down, and it is hard to imagine it will ever return. Rural North Dakota is part of the world. The price of this enhances cosmopolitanism and sophistication has been a deterioration of local community life. Rural people are still loyal to their local communities, and their ties there are probably more compelling than the community ties townspeople feel, but local social institutions and community practices have become less important to people. The cost of broader opportunities and greater sophistication can be measured in an indigenous culture which is less full, rich, and satisfying than it once was.

The lives farm people live are progressively harder to distinguish from the lives of townspeople. Increasingly, farmers think and behave like businessmen. Commercial advantage — not self-sufficiency — guides them. Spend a day in a farm house and another in a house in town and try to distinguish between them. Farm people have the same appliances and furniture, watch the same television programs, read the same newspapers and magazines, wear the same clothes, and eat the same brand-name foods as do urban people. The differences between farm and non-farm people, one so clear, have become increasingly subtle and even indistinct.

Perhaps there are reasons to regret the fact that North Dakota farm people are becoming part of a hegemonic urban American culture. Lives of self-reliance and independence and privation may have contributed to the formation of admirable character traits. The kerosene lamp, the outhouse, canning of vegetables, the hand pump, and the unsurfaced road connote some romantic and homey images. But rural North Dakotans have become modern, twentieth-century Americans living in accordance with the standards of their fellow citizens, and they have done so by choice. We cannot tell how Americans in 2089 will be living, but it is pretty certain that North Dakota farmers will be living as other Americans do.

We can only guess what changes are in store for North Dakota agriculture and the people who practice it. It is easier to predict the character traits North Dakota farm people will have. In 1889 and 1989 North Dakota farmers were characterized by resilience, flexibility, an attraction for practical innovation, a love of the land, a commitment to the idealism of their profession, and a determination to survive. If North Dakotans are still farming in 2089 they will likely still be exhibiting those characteristics. It is somehow comforting to reflect that certain realities of character do not change, even while the realities of occupation and lifestyle alter dramatically.

End Notes

¹ My conception of the place of agriculture in the history of North Dakota is derived in part from such standard interpretations of North Dakota history as Elwyn B. Robinson’s History of North Dakota (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1966) and Robert P. and Wynona H. Wilkins’ North Dakota: A Bicentennial History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), as well as from my own research as reflected in "North Dakota: The Most Midwestern State," in Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States, James H. Madison, ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1988), pp. 107-126, and "Our Purpose is to Serve": The First Century of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station (forthcoming in 1990 from the North Dakota Institute For Regional Studies). I benefited from comments on this essay by H. Roald Lund, Director of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, and Larry R. Peterson of the North Dakota State University History Department.