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Agriculture is immeasurably important to me, both personally and professionally.

When I was growing up on the family farm, I shed sweat and tears and even some blood 鈥� the result of minor farm-related injuries 鈥� while helping my father, mother, sister and brothers produce crops and livestock. I learned the value of hard work and the importance of producing food in a way that was environmentally sound for the land where it was grown and safe for the people who would eat it.

As an adult who has spent much of her 40-year-career in journalism writing about farming, ranching and agricultural production I have had a stake in their success. The economics of my small hometown of Larimore, North Dakota, nearby larger city of Grand Forks, and my state are largely dependent on agriculture. My paycheck comes from a company that owns Agweek, the magazine for which I work.

Those reasons, and many more, are why I cheer for the success of agricultural industries that are sound and firmly rooted in the communities in which they are located.

American Crystal Sugar Co., based in Moorhead, Minnesota, has a factory in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and The North Dakota Mill and Elevator in Grand Forks celebrated its 100th anniversary two years ago. Associated Potato Growers, a potato wholesaler in Grand Forks, has been in business 76 years.

In glaring contrast to the stability and longevity of those agricultural businesses are some of the potential ones that approach eager local and state economic developers and dazzle them with the potential economic impact they will have on their communities. The economic developers, city leaders and city councils jump into the projects with both feet, touting them to the public and giving them financial assistance.

When the projects don't come to fruition or the businesses close a few years after they opened, the silence from those same economic developers is deafening.

The "wins" on the economic development websites are removed and the longtime agricultural businesses remain there, even though the former was there decades before the latter existed.

Here are a couple of examples from Grand Forks:

In July 2023, Fufeng, a wet corn milling facility project that initially had been supported by Grand Forks Region Economic Development and the city of Grand Forks was halted. The cessation of the project came after a year and a half of concerned citizens questioning Grand Forks City Council about the plant, which was owned by a Chinese company, being built within 15 miles of Grand Forks Air Force Base.

While the security issue also raised concerns with me, I was skeptical of the project from the get-go because it was being built in Grand Forks County, where, yes, corn is grown, but not in the quantities that it is grown in southern North Dakota. Meanwhile, the amount that the plant鈥檚 boosters said it was going to pay per bushel for the corn seemed to me to be too high to sustain for the long-term.

Then, last month, it became public that a Grand Forks ethanol plant, was being sold after being in existence only four years and closed for half of that time. My reporting background on turning agricultural waste into ethanol had raised red flags with me about that plant since its inception seven years ago.

It frustrates me to no end that some economic developers appear to do little homework on the background of the potential businesses and readily give them grants and tax incentives. Agriculture is a complicated business like no other, and agricultural economists and others who specialize in the industry, such as energy experts, crops and livestock production experts and others, depending on what the business is, should be consulted.

If, after exhausting all of the ways that the potential agricultural business could be researched, it鈥檚 deemed a good investment, perhaps economic developers could use restraint when they talk about the potential financial impact and jobs the business could create.

That would result in less frustration for community members like me when the business fails and the same people who shouted from the rooftops about the excellent impact that the business would have on the community are silent.

I鈥檓 by far no economic development expert in agriculture or otherwise, but my career as a journalist has trained me to be thorough, to be skeptical and to do my homework.

The two 鈥淩s鈥� 鈥� research and restraint 鈥攚ould go a long way to improve my perception of economic development.

Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, N.D., that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or abailey@agweek.com.