About Us

Many thanks to Video Arts, Fargo ND!

45th Anniversary of Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative

Faces of the Team 2016

Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative (MDFC) is located in Wahpeton, a city in the southeast corner of North Dakota, in the heart of the Red River Valley. MDFC has a 1200 acre footprint in Richland County, North Dakota. The Cooperative is owned by approximately 500 sugarbeet Shareholders/Growers who collectively grow 115,000 acres of sugarbeets and is part of the domestic sweetener industry. MDFC employs about 390 year-round, 56 seasonal and 320 harvest employees MDFC Shareholders produce sugarbeets for processing at the Cooperative’s plant in Wahpeton.

MDFC has a rich history that dates back to the 1970s, when a group of sugarbeet farmers formed Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative. Following is a timeline of events that have made MDFC what it is today.

Time period	Occurrence
Late 1930s	First efforts made to get a sugarbeet factory in Wahpeton/Breckenridge
1950–1970	Active efforts by farmers and business people to obtain factory and an acreage allotment from the US Department of Agriculture
Aug. 30th, 1972	MDFC officially formed
Sept. 25th, 1972	First MDFC grower acreage signup
Feb. 3rd, 1973	Factory groundbreaking
Feb. 26th, 1973	Construction begins
Mar. 25th, 1973	MDFC Board of Directors elected
Apr. 8th, 1974	North Central Sugar Marketing officially formed
Apr. 19th, 1974	First MDFC beets planted by Richard Yaggie
Sept. 7th, 1974	Factory dedicated
Oct. 1st, 1974	First campaign gets underway with an estimated 800,000 tons of beets
Apr. 23rd, 1979	Midwest Agri-Commodities officially formed
July 11th, 1989	Minn-Dak Yeast Company officially formed
Jan.1st, 1994	United Sugars Corporation officially formed
Jan. 1995	MDFC expansion begins
Dec. 1999	Expansion completed
Feb. 4, 2015	Molasses Desugarizing Facility Startup
May 1, 2017	Minn-Dak Yeast Company sold to Dakota Yeast LLC, a subsidiary of Lallemand Inc.