Other Assistance Programs

Other Assistance/Resources

Community Resources and Economic Development - Defining community can be difficult, as community means different things to different people. Community development is not the same as community growth or expansion. The role of community development is to accomplish the community's purpose, or why it exists, with quality and balance. This is done with the larger communities in mind and is the responsibility of all residents of the community. North Dakota State University sees itself as part of the community of North Dakota. As a resident of this larger community, our role is to utilize the human and technical resources of NDSU to help individual communities, large and small, accomplish the community's purpose. The NDSU Extension Service has a long history of working with rural communities in such areas as leadership development, strategic planning, business retention and expansion and youth entrepreneurship activities.

What We Will Do - If your community is just beginning the planning process, NDSU has resources available to assist you with the strategic planning and/or the business retention and expansion process. After specific needs (Projects) have been identified IBID can help by finding the appropriate resources at NDSU to get the issue resolved. Our assistance will be prompt and one-to-one. All proprietary information will be held confidential. We will then provide assistance through our own expertise and/or looking up information. If it is a question beyond our expertise or scope, we will refer you to other resources. After we provide the assistance, we will send you a brief evaluation survey to determine your satisfaction and the economic impact of our assistance.

Value Added Agriculture Assistance- IBID helps North Dakota businesses improve their competitiveness by providing free technical assistance and information, on a confidential basis, to help resolve specific technical questions or needs that can be addressed within a limited amount of time. IBID in close cooperation with the College of Agriculture, the College of Engineering, and Northern Crops Institute, can help you with questions regarding processing, processing equipment, plant layout and design, material process flow, quality control, etc.

Typical Questions
*Do you have any milling facilities available to make some short production runs for test marketing a product we are developing?
*We need to modify an existing piece of processing equipment to fit our needs. Can your engineers assist us in these modifications?
*Can you help us determine the profile of the dry edible bean market?
*What is the most efficient machinery layout for our facility?
*What is the feasibility of establishing a vegetable processing facility?

Food Product Assistance - IBID works with the NDSU College of Agriculture and the College of Human Development and Education to assist you with your food product needs.

Typical Questions
*Can you help us determine if our food product is safe?
*Can you help us with a nutrition label for our product?
*Where can I go to get a shelf life study done?
*Where can I go to find packaging information?
A website "Food Entrepreneur-Guide to the Food Industry" has been developed to assist with many of the questions.

What We Will Do
North Dakota State University is a Land Grant University with a wide range of resources in the agriculture area. Whether you need access to milling facilities and equipment, laboratory services or just want to visit about a technical issue with one of our researchers, IBID can help you make the connection. IBID assistance will be prompt and one-on-one. All proprietary information will be held confidential. After we provide the assistance, we will send you a brief evaluation survey to determine your satisfaction and the economic impact of our assistance.

Cost
Initial interviews and services are provided without charge. If the project requires major research or investment, a cost proposal will be prepared. Agreement on cost will be made before extended services are provided. If information is located from a source which charges a fee, we will provide you with information on how to purchase the information.

Resources