In the latter half of the nineteenth century, North Dakota and other regions in the United States and Canada witnessed the emergence of commercial wheat farming operations on an unprecedented scale. Dubbed “bonanza farms,” these enterprises spanned thousands of acres and leveraged the cutting-edge machinery of the era. One Atlantic writer in 1880 even pondered whether these bonanza farms were “destined to . . . work a revolution in the great economies of the farm.” Among the most renowned of these was Dalrymple Farm, an 11,000-acre operation situated approximately 20 miles west of Fargo, North Dakota, near the small town of Casselton.
Although the lifespan of Dalrymple and other bonanza farms was relatively short, the spirit of agricultural innovation has remained deeply rooted in the Fargo region. This enduring appetite for farm innovation was clearly evident on a summer morning in 2024, when key figures in Fargo’s agtech community convened on some of that historic land around Casselton to celebrate the inauguration of the Grand Farm Innovation Shop. This 25,000-square-foot facility is dedicated to showcasing advancements in agricultural research and technology.
The Grand Farm initiative aims to foster greater collaboration and research among startups, growers, researchers, and both public and private-sector stakeholders. The goal is to address the most pressing needs in agriculture, starting in North Dakota and eventually extending globally. The 140-acre Grand Farm Innovation Campus near Casselton offers land for field trials and indoor spaces for classrooms and meetings.
“One of the challenges that’s unique to agtech startups is the innovation cycle,” explains Andrew Jason, ecosystems director at the nonprofit Emerging Prairie, which leads the Grand Farm initiative. “The business cycle takes so many years of testing and validation. Most startups just die because there’s so little funding.” As of 2024, Grand Farm hosts 31 field plots from 22 partners and 18 different organizations, including startups like Pivot Bio and ClearLeaf, as well as major corporations such as ADM and Anheuser-Busch. This June, the initiative expanded with a new campus in Georgia.
Howard Dahl, CEO of beet-harvesting tech company Amity Technology and a longtime agtech pioneer, envisions Grand Farm as a platform to explore diverse agricultural innovations. “I think there’s an opportunity at Grand Farm to build an experimental farm of the future where [many] types of things are explored,” he said at another agtech event later in the week. Among his visions is an operation powered by solar panels, producing its own hydrogen in the winter months to be used during summer farm operations.
To comprehend the significance of Fargo’s role in agtech, “we have to go back in time a little bit,” says Ryan Raguse, cofounder of grain-trading software platform Bushel, which is headquartered in the city. He notes that Fargo’s agtech roots can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century with the emergence of equipment manufacturers like Bobcat, which developed the world’s first skid-steer loader, and Steiger Tractor, credited with integrating the first computer chip into a tractor. Barry Batcheller, an engineer at Steiger, later founded Phoenix International, a hardware/software manufacturing company acquired by John Deere in 1999.
Software innovation also played a crucial role, particularly with the rise of Great Plains Software in the 1980s, which was acquired by Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. Microsoft has maintained a presence in Fargo, where it still operates a campus and invested $1.5 million into Grand Farm in 2018.
Greg Lardy, VP of agriculture at North Dakota State University, emphasizes the region’s long-standing culture of innovation. “You have the spirit of innovation that’s been happening for decades, and you have a high level of entrepreneurism, in part because the region had to be entrepreneurial for people to just get by,” he says. This spirit, combined with a generational mindset towards innovation, has fostered a unique ecosystem.
Raguse and his cofounder Jake Joraanstad of Bushel attribute much of their success to the accessible nature of capital, government, and technology in Fargo. “I could literally pick up the phone and call anybody I wanted to,” says Raguse, highlighting the collaborative and supportive community that has been instrumental in fostering agtech innovation in the region.
North Dakota’s policies around autonomous machines and drone technology further enhance the region’s appeal for testing new technologies. For instance, the state has designated certain highways as “autonomy testing highways,” allowing for the legal testing of autonomous vehicles. Similarly, North Dakota permits drones to be flown beyond the line of sight, offering a conducive environment for technological advancements in agriculture.
As Grand Farm continues to build on Fargo’s rich history of agricultural innovation, it stands as a testament to the region’s enduring legacy and its pivotal role in shaping the future of agtech.