Even with growing exports, record crop of wheat in 1971 drives prices to about $1.30 a bushel, the lowest since 1943. Suddenly, a poor Soviet Union harvest prompts huge purchases of U.S. grain in 1972, creating high prices and "fencerow-to-fencerow" farming in 1973 and 1974. American Crystal Sugar Co. of Moorhead becomes a cooperative in 1972, and Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative and Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative at Renville, Minn., are created.

In 1973, a Devils Lake, N.D., farmer receives $8.30 per bushel for his durum wheat. He tells a news reporter he's spent $50,000 on new machinery that year and still has enough left over to buy 400 more acres of land. Farmers in the region discover they can make a living on grain alone.

In a time of prosperity, North Dakota's anti-corporate farming law makes its first exception - for family farming corporations. Farmers whose families bought land in the 1940s and 1950s now become paper millionaires, causing high real estate taxes and later estate taxes. To protect consumers, President Nixon embargoes exports of soybeans and cottonseed and slaps price controls on beef.

In July 1975, the International Longshoreman's Association refuses to load American grain on Soviet-bound ships. In October, President Gerald Ford announces a five-year deal with the Soviets on purchase amounts that will "prevent surging food costs."

Wheat prices weaken in 1976 and then collapse. Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter promises that, if elected, he will never impose an embargo on agricultural exports.

The American Agriculture Movement starts in Springfield, Colo., in 1977. On Nov. 6, 1978, Patrick Benedict of Sabin, Minn., then 44, is pictured on the cover of Time magazine. With Benedict's 3,500 acres and half-million dollars in equipment, he is described as "archetypal of the farmers who make U.S. agriculture the nation's most efficient and productive industry and by far the biggest force holding down the trade deficit."

The AAM leads to Tractorcade I to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 through April 1979, demanding 100 percent of parity and urging farmers to cut production 50 percent. Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland, a former 7th District congressman from Roseau, Minn., tells protesters many paid too much for land and were "driven by old-fashioned greed."

Farmers who help vote in inflation-fighting Ronald Reagan now face a land deflation and a credit crisis. Land values peak in 1982 but come down fast.

In 1980, Minneapolis contractor Leonard Gasparri starts his Noodles by Leonardo pasta plant in Cando, N.D. The same year Cargill builds a sunflower plant in West Fargo.

In 1982, National Sun Industries builds a $50 million oilseed plant at Enderlin. The same year, Midwest Processing dedicates its $45 million sunflower processing plant near Velva, N.D. The Velva plant closes in early 1983 and becomes the biggest single defaulter on an FmHA loan.

In February 1983, Gordon Kahl, a Heaton, N.D., farmer, a decorated war veteran and a tax protester who had served time for refusing to pay taxes, is involved in a shootout that ends with the deaths of two U.S. marshals at Medina, N.D. The Posse Commitatus becomes a household word.

Also in 1983, North Dakota lawyer Sarah Vogel wins a national class action lawsuit (Coleman vs. Block) against the Farmers Home Administration. It stops farm foreclosures nationwide for five years and leads to "borrowers rights" regulations under the Farm Credit Act of 1987.

In 1985, Dawn Enterprises of Walhalla, N.D., starts operating its $32 million ethanol plant, but closes in 1986. Cenex leases it. Alchem Ltd. of Grafton starts in 1985.

In 1986, North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Kent Jones creates a credit crisis counseling service for farmers. Merlyn Yagow, a Gwinner, N.D., farmer, blockades his farm and vows to defend his machinery with guns.

Also in 1986, farmers use government "generic certificates" and the payment-in-kind (PIK) program to reduce government stockpiles and add $1 per bushel to their grain values.

Milt Hertz, a Mott, N.D., farmer who serves stints as director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, calls the "certs" legal and proper while those who use them describe them as "gift certificates."

In 1986, Ag Commissioner Jones is hurt politically by an ill-fated attempt to sell seed potatoes in Honduras. In 1988, Vogel wins a three-way race for agriculture commissioner with Jones and Keith Bjerke. Jones suffers a debilitating stroke on election night and dies eight years later.

The 1985 farm bill creates new environmental rules. Farmers are vexed by new Swampbuster and Sodbuster provisions. The Conservation Reserve Program, a land-idling program with 10-year rental contracts, begins, eventually idling 2.9 million acres in the state.

U.S. equipment sales decline from $12 billion in 1981 to less than $4 billion in 1987, the year Steiger Tractor Co. of Fargo sells out to J.I. Case, a subsidiary of Tenneco. Companies begin experimenting with "site-specific" farming using Global Positioning System technology.

Drought grips the region in 1988 and 1989, forever hurting the Red River Valley's reputation for non-irrigated potato production. In the west central Minnesota and North Dakota region, tens of millions of dollars in write-offs or restructuring were allowed.

It's a decade of less livestock, less tillage, and more farmer-owned processing. Farm size continues to polarize. Dairies hit 1,100 to 1,400 cows. More farmers begin to use computerized field and yield mapping. Two major manufacturers end the decade owning manufacturing plants in the region for air-seeders.

Irrigated potato acreage expands in the Park Rapids, Minn., area and in the Jamestown, N.D., area to produce french fries. Fargo-based farmer Ron D. Offut gains attention as the world's biggest potato grower, heading into the new century with an estimated 80,000 acres of irrigated spuds across the nation. His companies also accumulate John Deere dealerships, as well as truck and construction equipment stores.

In 1993, Dakota Growers Pasta Co. starts producing pasta at Carrington, N.D., with a $41 million investment. By the end of the decade, the company expands to become the No. 3 company in the U.S.

In 1996, Aviko USA L.L.C. starts production with its $60 million french fry plant in the Jamestown area. At the same time, ProGold L.L.C. starts production with a $260 million corn fructose plant at Wahpeton, N.D. ProGold's market collapses and the plant is leased to Cargill in 1997.

This allows American Crystal, a partner, to invest millions in its sugar beet plants.

In 1997, United Spring Wheat Processors, a multi-state cooperative, raises $25 million from growers. In 1998, the co-op announces it will retrofit an Atlanta-area plant site for $20 million to manufacture its partial-baked bread items.

Several fresh carrot companies start and go bust due to competition from California and a fire in a dehydration plant at Fosston, Minn. In 1996, a Republican-led Congress passes the "Freedom to Farm" law, designed to wean farmers from federal spending and remove cropping decisions from payments.

The decade ends with farmers in a crippling cost-price squeeze. While wheat prices are at 30-year lows, some 12-row combines with heads can run up to $300,000. Farms often have to be 2,500 acres to be full-time.

Only 22,677 farmers in North Dakota list it as their principal occupation.