Minot Grain Inspection prides themselves in providing the best service they can throughout northwest North Dakota. The agency was founded in 1947 by Olav Wefold who sold the business to James Thom in 1965. James’s son David is now the agency president, and he still has his dad grade a sample or two when he comes by the office. David’s daughter Jessica works at the agency as an inspector with a wheat license and is preparing for her canola license.

Until 1965 the agency just graded grain. After purchasing the agency, the industry needed protein analysis performed on the wheat they were marketing. To meet the industry’s needs, James purchased a small house across the street from the main elevator in Minot and began performing protein analysis using the kjeldahl method. David remembers that the place was really hot with all those banks of kjedahal apparatuses running. At that time FGIS did not have an official protein program. Minot began performing the analysis officially once FGIS established the official protein program.

In the late 1980s Minot began performing Falling Number tests and in the late 90s they began performing mycotoxin tests to meet the needs of the grain industry in northwest North Dakota.

The Agency’s headquarters and laboratory are in Minot. They have four additional onsite laboratories at shuttle loaders and 16 other locations that load shuttle trains where they perform sampling. Approximately 25 employees work at the agency grading many different grains. Wheat, soybeans, barley, oats, canola, flax, sunflower seeds, peas, beans and lentils are all routinely graded by the Minot inspection team. Durum and Spring wheat are the primary grains inspected, with soybeans coming in next. Soybeans are relatively new having become a popular choice for producers in the area. While soybeans have moved north into Minot’s area, canola has also moved in from Canada in recent years.

Minot has always been known to go the extra mile for its customers. Years back the elevators would load railcars and sell them at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange the next day. In those days actual samples of the grain were presented at the exchange so buyers could see what they were bidding on. Once cars were sampled Minot employees would rush back to the laboratory and cut out a portion of the sample to be sent overnight to the Exchange. Submitted samples representing cars were also delivered to the post office and picked up in the afternoon. Samples were sent overnight to the Exchange by train whenever possible. However, the train was not always that predicable, and in the winter the weather made the train even less predictable. If the train would not meet the customer’s need the samples would be taken to the airport and placed on commercial planes to be transported to the Exchange. Air shipping was always more expensive, so the train was used whenever possible. Once airline consolidation occurred shipping cost rose as the airlines considered the samples as luggage. Samples were also placed on the plane when samplers could not get back in time to place them on the train. David remembers making many trips to the airport at 3:00 am when they opened to get them on the plane so they could be on the trading floor that very morning.

Getting samples to the Exchange was only part of the process. Inspection results also needed to accompany the samples before the Exchange opened. Inspectors would grade the samples late into the night to get enough done so that the morning inspectors could get the remaining samples done before the Exchange opened. Sometimes when there were a lot of samples, inspections were preformed all night. The secretary would call and read the grades to the folks at the Exchange. It was a great leap forward when Fax machines arrived, and information could be sent by automatically dialing Minneapolis. While other official agencies performed similar activities, Minot was the agency farthest away from Minneapolis, so they had a greater challenge.

Although David has been in the grain inspection business his entire adult life, he continues to be fascinated by the business. As David says, “every year is a new and distinctly different challenge.” Two years ago, the area experienced a drought which left the agency with little to do at times, but on some days, there would be multiple trains loading at the same time. This year, although the year started out dry, record rains came in the fall and there are still corn and sunflower fields were still being harvested into March. Some wheat and canola fields were never harvested. The news recently reported that a combine had caught on fire while harvesting sunflower seed. While combine fires are not that uncommon, it’s the first time anyone remembers it happening in February. The unpredictability of grain inspection is what keeps the grain inspection business interesting for David.

Minot strives to provide whatever services their customers want. They have been providing unofficial falling number tests but based on customer requests they will soon be providing them officially. The industry was interested in falling number test three years ago and Minot worked with another agency to provide the service. For the next two years there were no requests, and now due to the poor crop quality, falling number tests are being requested.

The agency has been in four different buildings in Minot since it began. They have been in their current location since 1984. When the current building was built there was a great deal of talk about the need for truck sampling so they built a two story building with a balcony and a ramp so they could probe trucks off the second story, but that does not happen as much now. Minot may probe about 100 trucks a year at this time.

While the days of having to get samples to the Exchange have disappeared, and the internet has replaced phone calls and fax machines, what has not changed is Minot’s and the Thom family’s commitment to provide folks in northwest North Dakota with the service they need to best market their grain.

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