A new AgTech company is locating its headquarters in Fargo, N.D. With it comes a very impressive CEO in Michelle Tressel, her vision to build out a team from local talent, as well as a solid product that growers truly need now. And the company is actively pursuing more good ideas for expansion of services.
Fargo and North Dakota are ideal for the company, MyAgData, thanks to the flourishing concentration of AgTech innovation, and existing strengths in accelerating new technology to serve the agriculture field.
MyAgData provides a link from data already being collected by grower machinery to submission for federal reporting. “We’re like TurboTax for growers,” she says. As much as 98 percent of growers need to file with agencies for crop insurance or disaster programs, for example.
The digital approach has several plusses for growers, including more accurate data about the acreage actually planted and greatly improved ease of filing required information to federal agencies. The old way, farmers used pre-existing paper maps that were seldom accurate, and spent untold hours manually filling out reams of paperwork. Both farmers and taxpayers save a lot of money when the data is accurate.
MyAgData is the only third party that as the credentials to file with the USDA clearinghouse.
The federal agencies announced their readiness in December, making 2024 the first full growing season for the technology to be employed. To ease the transition, Tressel and team are focused on education for growers. The $120 fee for reporting electronically includes customer service. “We want to make sure the growers are supported as they make the transition from manual reporting,” she says. As the expectation is for 95 percent of acreage reports to be filed electronically in the next five years, Tressel is, with good reason, optimistic about the future of this technology.
She is also pleased to be bringing a presence to Fargo and North Dakota. The seeds of this move go back to the Prairie Capital Summit in October 2023, where Tressel met Kathy Cochran, who was at that time supporting the FARMS application to the US National Science Foundation. Cochran then introduced Tressel to Adam Gilbertson, vice president at RDO, and William Aderholdt, executive director at Grand Farm, then NDSU VP for Research Colleen Fitzgerald, and Ryan Asheim of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation, who made the introduction to Brian Opp at the North Dakota Department of Commerce. And on and on. The people you want to know and the people who want to know CEOs like Tressel. “The ecosystem is really strong,” Tressel says.