by Haley Moen
The scale of row crop farming in North Dakota is hard to miss. Farmers plant thousands of acres in a matter of weeks, usher in millions of bushels throughout the season, and send semi-loads of grain down the road carrying the weight of a year’s work. These are the scales we work in, and often the scales we need to survive.
Not so long ago, a family could thrive on a few hundred acres. Today, many farms stretch into the thousands of acres. The average farm size in North Dakota has more than tripled since 1950, even as the number of farms has been cut nearly in half over the last century. That growth has been necessary, but it comes with a cost. When it takes a thousand acres or more to support a household, what happens when the next generation wants to return? How many sons or daughters can build their lives on the same ground? At some point, the land stops dividing evenly. These questions are bigger than economics, they reach into the future of families, rural vitality, and the tradition of farming itself.
What if the answer is in thinking smaller, in what is possible on a single acre?
On paper, an acre is just 43,560 square feet, but what you choose to do with it can change everything. One farmer may plant wheat, respectfully tend to it throughout the season, harvest, haul it to the elevator, and move on to the next field. Another may see a single acre out of that field as 3,300 pounds of flour, enough to bake more than 2,000 loaves of bread or enough flour to supply the shelves of local bakeries.
What happens when we apply this thought process to other crops North Dakota excels at?
One acre of dry beans can be packaged into thousands of soup or chili mix kits, turning a bulk crop into a ready-to-use product.
Sunflowers pressed into oil can be bottled and sold as a staple for kitchens year-round, while grapes from a single acre can be transformed into around 1,000 plus bottles of wine, poured out as thousands of glasses at tables and celebrations.
Even barley, when malted instead of sold by the bushel, carries new value as part of the craft brewing economy. An acre may be only a measure of land, but its power to generate products, markets, and connections goes far beyond its boundaries.
And if we think even smaller than an acre, the possibilities grow sharper still. A single high tunnel greenhouse can produce more than 10,000 pounds of tomatoes in a season, enough to supply markets or be processed into thousands of jars of sauce and salsa. That same space can also yield steady cuttings of lettuce, thousands of bunches of herbs, or trays of strawberries packed and sold directly to families. These are all commercial-ready add-ons that diversify a farm operation and create space for the next generation to participate, for those eager to take it on.
Planting the vineyard in 2023
These paths require different kinds of work. They call for marketing, direct sales, food processing, or hosting visitors, all on top of farming itself. For many current farmers, that may not feel worth the time when there are already thousands of acres to manage. But for their sons and daughters, those very challenges may be where they see their chance.
Hearthside Vineyard and Winery in 2025.
This younger generation has grown up comfortable with technology, which helps tremendously with marketing, and they are ambitious to carve something out for themselves. They have also come of age through hardships that tested their resilience and taught them to adapt.
Last but not least, many of this younger generation were raised in true North Dakota culture, steeped in hard work, perseverance, and faith in Jesus Christ. What may feel like extra work to one generation can look like an opportunity to the next, and sometimes that is the difference between one child staying on the land and several children finding their own way back.
An acre is more than a measurement on a plat map. It is bread baked and sold in local bakeries, wine poured at celebrations, sweet corn eaten around family tables, tomatoes simmered into sauce, or pumpkins carried home from the patch. It is the chance to see food raised, shared, and enjoyed in ways that go beyond yield charts. And it is proof that the next generation, resilient and ready, can carry farming forward in ways both familiar and new, all the way to the place that matters most… On Your Table.
With respect,
A daughter who returned to farm differently
Haley Moen is the District 3 representative on the NDFB Promotion and Education Committee and the owner of Hearthside Vineyard and Winery. You can follow Hearthside Winery on Facebook