Grand Farm Initiative to enhance precision ag research

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — A partnership between North Dakota State University, Emerging Prairie and the Agricultural Research Service will serve to enhance agriculture research by the Grand Farm Initiative.

Backed by North Dakota Senator John Hoeven, the Agricultural Research Service wants to strengthen rural economies and diversify farm income.

“Nobody does agriculture better than North Dakota. We’re number one in the country. What we announced today is a cooperative agreement between Grand Farms, our new initiative, along with NDSU, the best school of ag research in the nation and also the USDA, particularly the ag research service,” Hoeven said.

Hoeven says the $1 million partnership will take precision agriculture at Grand Farm to the next level.

One of the initiative’s goals is to increase production to help feed the growing population across the region.

“This is about helping our farmers reduce their input cost, increase their productivity and of course we feed this nation. Our farmers feed this nation, they feed the world. I’m really kind of modeling this whole push after what we did up at Grand Sky Technology Park in the unmanned aviation now doing it with Grand Farm in terms of ag research,” Hoeven said

Hoeven adds he wants to see similar progress to the project done at Grand Sky on a more grounded level.

“I really wanna see what happens up in Grand Forks with the Grand Sky Tech Park, I wanna see that happen with Grand Farm. I wanna see all the leading ag and ag tech and bio companies coming in here and working with NDSU and working with our farmers and ranchers to drive research and development and technology for our farmers and ranchers forward,” said Hoeven.

To finalize the deal, Hoeven passed the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act and the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act to improve broadband access in rural areas.