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As students across the state settle in for another school year, North Dakota voters will decide whether to fund the food that fuels them.

If passed in the November general election, a constitutional measure brought forth by a citizen-led coalition – Together for School Meals – would require state funding for daily school meals. Measure 2 would provide one free breakfast and one free lunch each school day to every student enrolled in public schools and public charter schools. Private and tribal schools may also opt-in for the program.

Growing up on a farm near Casselton, Michael Howe never imagined his family’s dinner conversations would inspire an initiative he would later launch as North Dakota’s secretary of state.

“My parents, I would say, are very civically engaged, and I grew up talking about policy at the kitchen table. My parents never ran for office, but we had the 6 o’clock news on during dinner, and you would hear about the events of the day,” he says.

Now, Howe encourages other North Dakotans to understand the benefits of those types of dinner table conversations.

VELVA, N.D. – A crowd gathered in Velva on July 15 for a public announcement and open house for the future home of the North Central Regional Grocery and Local Food Hub.

FEEDING THE WORLD
Matt Perdue, president, North Dakota Farmers Union

As America marks its 250th anniversary, North Dakota will celebrate a milestone of its own with the grand opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library July 4 in Medora.

Built within the buttes of the Badlands, the library showcases Theodore Roosevelt's character and vision, and tells the story of the nation’s 26th president who influenced conservation, preservation of public lands and true American leadership.

Long before North Dakota’s statehood, Indigenous people shaped the Northern Plains.

Along the banks of the Missouri River, Mandan and Hidatsa women crafted earth lodges from willow, grass and sod. With hoes made of bison bones, they tended vast fields of corn, squash and beans – the Three Sisters. These nutritious crops could be dried and stored, making them valuable for trade.

When the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Quinn Renfandt saw how serious food shortages could be to a landlocked state like North Dakota. It created a sense of urgency he hadn’t felt before.

“I was fascinated – and honestly disturbed – by the fact that we have food deserts here in North Dakota,” he says.

A food desert is an underserved area with limited access to affordable, healthy, fresh food.

While farmers across the nation faced an economic collapse during the 1980s farm crisis, Brian Maddock studied.

As a legacy farmer, his family heritage runs deep. Maddock Ranch, located near the town of its namesake, traces back to Brian’s grandfather, who homesteaded in the area in 1889; the same year North Dakota gained statehood.

But it wasn’t until Brian attended a course on holistic resource management (HRM), that he put his faith into treating the ranch as one interconnected ecosystem. It worked.