The Halverson Legacy
There's a particular kind of stubbornness required to farm potatoes in North Dakota. The growing season is short. The winters are long. The wind doesn't quit. And yet, nearly a century ago, a man named A.E. Halverson looked at the flat, fertile land around Grand Forks and saw something worth betting his life on.
That bet became Black Gold Farms.
Today, the Halverson family still runs the show. Eric Halverson serves as CEO. His brother John is COO. Their sister Leah handles marketing through her agency, Ten Acre Marketing. Their father Gregg chairs the board. This isn't a farm that got swallowed up by a conglomerate — it's still very much a family affair, complete with the kind of healthy debates that only happen around a table where everyone shares a last name.
What They Grow (And Why It Matters)
Black Gold Farms specializes in potatoes for three distinct markets: chipping, processing, and fresh produce. If you've ever eaten a potato chip from a major brand, crunched into a fast-food fry, or grabbed a bag of russets from the grocery store, there's a decent chance Black Gold Farms had something to do with it.
They operate across multiple states — their reach extends well beyond North Dakota — but their headquarters remain rooted in Grand Forks, the kind of town where people still wave at each other from their trucks and Friday night football is the closest thing to religion.
The name \"Black Gold\" isn't about oil. It's about soil. Rich, dark, impossibly fertile North Dakota soil. The kind of dirt that makes agronomists get a little misty-eyed. And the Halversons have spent generations learning how to take care of it.
Sustainability Isn't a Buzzword Here
Plenty of companies slap \"sustainable\" on their website and call it a day. Black Gold Farms is doing something different. They've set a goal to become 100% regenerative by 2030 — not just sustainable, but actively improving the land they farm on.
Their regenerative agriculture strategy focuses on four areas that sound simple but are anything but:
- Soil Health: Building organic matter, reducing compaction, keeping the biology in the dirt alive and thriving.
- Watershed Health: Protecting the water that runs through and around their fields — because what happens on the farm doesn't stay on the farm.
- Biodiversity: Encouraging the ecosystem around the fields to be more than just potatoes. Pollinators, beneficial insects, cover crops — the whole web of life that makes farming actually work long-term.
- Pest Management: Using integrated approaches that reduce chemical inputs without sacrificing crop health.
They've also committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. The way they're getting there is practical, not flashy: less fertilizer per pound of potato, less pesticide, less energy. More data. More precision. They've built out on-farm research teams that collect and analyze massive amounts of data to guide daily decisions. It's farming meets data science, and it's working.
A Family Business That Acts Like It
In 2019, Black Gold Farms made a move that says a lot about who they are: they invited a non-family member onto their board of directors for the first time. Doug Kling, a veteran of the fresh produce industry, was brought in specifically to challenge the family's thinking.
Eric Halverson said it plainly: \"Someone to push us and help us make the difficult decisions.\" That takes confidence. It's easy to keep a family board comfortable. It's harder — and smarter — to invite someone in who'll tell you what you don't want to hear.
Kling, for his part, said he was drawn to the family's commitment to growth, innovation, and harmony. \"Having all of that is not easy and it takes work,\" he said. Anyone who's ever tried to run a business with family members knows exactly what he means.
The People Behind the Potatoes
Black Gold Farms talks about their employees the way good companies do — not as \"human resources\" but as people whose lives they want to improve. Their sustainability report includes a section on \"Promoting Healthy, Rewarding Lives,\" focused on worker health, safety, education, and community involvement.
They want their workers and their families to be proud of the work they do. That might sound like corporate boilerplate, but spend five minutes reading about the Halversons and you get the sense they actually mean it. This is a family that grew up on these farms. They know what the work looks like at 5 AM in October when the harvest is on.
Why Black Gold Farms Matters
The American potato industry is massive — over a million acres planted every year, billions of pounds harvested. It's easy for individual farms to disappear into the commodity machinery. What makes Black Gold Farms worth watching is their refusal to do that.
They're a family operation competing at scale. They're investing in sustainability not because it's trendy, but because they're playing a century-long game. They named their company after dirt, for crying out loud. These are people who understand that everything starts with the soil.
Nearly 100 years after A.E. Halverson planted his first crop, Black Gold Farms is still growing — in every sense of the word. The next generation is already at the table, and the land they steward is in better shape than they found it.
That's not just good farming. That's a legacy.
Black Gold Farms is headquartered in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Learn more at blackgoldfarms.com.