National Farmers Market Week is coming up next week, and in North Dakota, organizers say they're deeply invested in trying to keep customer interest strong.

In Devils Lake, Maureen Scott oversees Market In The Park, where each weekend through mid-fall, customers can load up on fresh fruits, vegetables and specialty products.

Over the past several years, she said, they've gone from fewer than ten vendors to more than 60. Scott said it takes a lot of phone calls and other marketing in the offseason to maintain that robust group of producers and vendors.

"I think people need to work on it year-round," she said, "because the season is over in October, [and] you need to start planning for next year Oct. 30."

Without that desire, she suggested coordinators risk losing the many age groups who have taken a liking to farmers markets in towns and cities across the country, including young adults. According to the USDA, there are more than 8,000 registered markets. That compares with fewer than 2,000 in 1994, although the growth rate began to slow prior to the pandemic.

Scott remains optimistic that her operation and other farmers markets in North Dakota will continue to thrive. She said a key for her team is to ensure the products sold are grown within a 60-mile radius, and not imported from other parts of the country.

"We don't want to support something from Michigan or Wisconsin," she said. "We want to support the local grower."

Demand for locally grown food by smaller producers comes amid a backlash against corporate consolidation within agriculture, heightening concerns about the environmental and economic impacts industrial farms can have on surrounding communities.


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Some northeast Wisconsin residents are challenging a wastewater permit issued by the state to a large dairy operation.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reissued the wastewater permit to Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy in August. Petitioners are now requesting the State Division of Hearings and Appeals to review the terms for water monitoring and limits on the number of animals.

Adam Voskquil, attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, said the DNR has the authority to protect communities.

"We've been pushing for a few years now to see them use that more often, and this is one of those instances where they didn't do enough," Voskquil contended.

A 2021 Supreme Court ruling allowed the DNR to include terms on groundwater monitoring and setting size limits on concentrated animal feeding operations. But with more than 330 of them across the state, Voskquil said the DNR has included the terms in only a handful of permits. A spokesperson for the agency said they cannot comment on ongoing litigation.

Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy owns about 20,000 animals between its two locations in Kewaunee County, and produces more than 100 million gallons of liquid manure it spreads across 10,000 acres of land. Voskquil argued the land is susceptible to contamination.

"Pagel's is kind of playing a shell game with transferring manure between their operations," Voskquil asserted. "There just needs to be some threshold, some limit, to the growth of this operation."

The DNR states concentrated animal feeding operations are required to spread manure on land set back from drinking water wells, sinkholes and fractured bedrock and cannot have any runoff to rivers and lakes, among other requirements.


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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the name of the poultry producer. (9:55 a.m. MDT, Oct. 28, 2924)


Some Wisconsin poultry farmers have been left in the lurch after a sudden bankruptcy shed light on a law that prevented state officials from coming to their aid.

The processor Pure Prairie worked with about 50 farms in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa to raise broiler chickens.

Agriculture departments in the other two states stepped in to help farmers after Pure Prairie filed for bankruptcy last month. But in Wisconsin, farmers had to resort to giving away tens of thousands of chickens on Facebook.

Jason Mugnaini, executive director of government relations for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said the state just didn't have the structure to deal with such a situation.

"This very particular circumstance identified a gap in our state and federal laws," said Mugnaini. "That's really what it came down to, is that we didn't know that this was even a gap that existed in state statute."

He explained that in Wisconsin dairy, vegetable, and grain farmers have an indemnity fund available to make a claim in situations like this. Poultry farmers don't.

Reports from one farmer in western Wisconsin say Pure Prairie owes him nearly $100,000.

Mugnaini said the first part of the crisis was getting the chickens off the farms. Now, it's about keeping these farmers in business.

"The abrupt nature in which this really occurred left people in some really dire straits," said Mugnaini, "and that's really what the biggest challenge is right now, is how are we going to get these folks back up and running, continuing to produce agriculture, get them paid for what they're owed?"

On the federal level, poultry farmers have coverage under the Packers and Stockyards Act to make a claim and be compensated.

Mugnaini said it's just taking longer than they expected and there's no way to speed up the process.

"Working though trying to get those dollars out the door is going to be the most important piece of the next steps of this," said Mugnaini, "and then really trying to figure out how something like this happens, how we can prevent it from going forward."

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau says there are about 300 poultry farms like these in Wisconsin.


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Utah's leaders are taking steps to protect the state's shrinking agricultural land by issuing conservation easements. The move will limit non-agricultural uses on protected lands and ensure they remain dedicated to farming and ranching.

Jeremy Christensen, land conservation program manager for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, said the easements are necessary so that Utahns in the future can consume locally grown food. Because of the expected population growth in the Beehive State, farm land is being targeted by developers for housing and industrial projects.

Since the 1960s, Christensen said, the state has already lost a quarter of its farm land. He said that figure could likely rise if more isn't done.

"We are really struggling to produce enough food to feed the number of people that are coming into and are growing in our state," he said, "so a lot of the food that we eat comes from elsewhere."

Christensen said he is confident the answer may lie within conservation easements. The latest round of awards from the LeRay McAllister Working Farm and Ranch Fund is set to protect more than 5,500 acres throughout the state and award six privately-owned farms and ranches a total of about $1.7 million.

Christensen said landowners will receive funds for the developmental rights they're willing to giving up.

Christensen said farmers have welcomed the conservation easements, and added that there is a "huge demand," especially among multi-generational farming operations that are concerned with their longevity and vitality. But Christensen added that they're aiming to dispel misconceptions, "whether or not the land owner remains the owner of the property at the end of the day, which they do, or whether there is some mechanism by which they could lose control of the property through doing this easement, which they really can't."

Christensen contended the benefits of protecting these private properties extend "far beyond the boundaries of the properties themselves." He added that it is a benefit to not only landowners, but for all in the state who'll be able to consume local food and learn to value open lands.


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