From left, Tom Bodine, North Dakota Department of Agriculture, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., Richard Fordyce, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Jeb Williams, North Dakota Game and Fish, join other officials and stakeholders to discuss the Governor’s Legacy Soil Health and Habitat Program during a roundtable event in Mapleton on May 27, 2026. (Ceilidh Kern/For the North Dakota Monitor)
Brian Roach, a retired farmer who lives near Wheatland, N.D., shows a map of his farm, including a 35-acre section that he enrolled in the Governor’s Legacy Soil Health and Habitat Program, during an event on May 27, 2026. Roach said hopes the program will help to strengthen the soil and make it farmable in the future. (Ceilidh Kern/For the North Dakota Monitor)
MAPLETON, N.D. – Brian Roach, a retired farmer near Wheatland, North Dakota, has 35 acres of “HEL land,” or highly erodible land, on his property.
But “once it gets some topsoil put back on and you give it a few years to stabilize … we’ll get some root structure from the grass. It’ll become pretty productive cropland,” Roach said.
Roach is one of 150 farmers who put a combined 10,000 acres of their …