Larry Hoffman of Wheatland will join North Dakota’s State Board of Agricultural Research and Education (SBARE), and Richard Roland of Crosby will serve a second term.

Hoffman will be the North Dakota Ag Coalition representative on the board. He replaces Leland “Judge” Barth of Mandan, whose term expires this year. Roland represents a 10-county area in northwestern North Dakota. Roland and Hoffman will start their four-year terms July 1.

SBARE helps North Dakota State University’s North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and Extension Service identify needs and set funding priorities. To do that, SBARE gathers input on agricultural research and Extension needs from producers, and commodity and other interest groups. The board then organizes the needs into initiatives and ranks them for consideration for state funding each biennium.

Hoffman and his son and brother operate a diversified farming operation that raises beef cows, corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, tame hay and, at times, barley, oats, field peas and sunflowers.

He has been a 4-H leader and an Extension advisory board member, as well as a member of grain, fuel, agronomy and county crop improvement boards, including the North Dakota Corn Growers Association and Northern Plains Nitrogen boards, and the Farm Service Agency’s Cass County committee.

Hoffman also is chairman of the National Corn Growers Association’s research and business development team and a representative on the National Agricultural Genotyping Center board. He was instrumental in bringing the National Agricultural Genotyping Center to Fargo.

In addition, he has been a member of the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association and North Dakota Soybean Growers Association, and has been involved in corn research projects for the SBARE corn committee for 10 years.

Roland is the founder of Legume Logic, a company involved in introducing alternative crops such as legumes to replace summer fallow in the region. He grew up on a diversified cattle operation north of Bottineau. After graduating from NDSU in 1969, he taught vocational agriculture in LaMoure for four years. After moving to Crosby in 1974, he organized and taught the adult farm management classes in Crosby and Tioga for four years.

In 1978, he started a farm retail store and custom farming operation near Crosby, and introduced sunflowers and no-till winter wheat to the region. Then, through a local farmer investment group, he was involved in building a large hog farrowing facility. He started Legume Logic in 1990.

He has served on several boards, including the advisory board for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Mandan, and the North Dakota Dry Pea and Lentil and Crosby Parks and Recreation boards.

NDSU Agriculture Communication - May 5, 2016