Amanda Kopp is a fourth-generation grower in Des Lacs, North Dakota, who is in business with her father, Raymond Kopp. Together, they manage their operation to produce award-winning fields, taking the third-place prize in the Spring Wheat — Dryland category at the 2020 National Wheat Yield Contest.

But for Amanda, becoming a grower and taking her place was never in her original plan. “When I graduated high school, the last thing I wanted to do was come back and farm. I said, ‘Nope, not going to happen.’ About 10 years later, here I am, doing what I said I’d never do.”

Before joining her dad on the farm, Amanda worked at a body shop in town, doing some of their commercial work. But that work wasn’t to her liking. “I just kind of got burned out of that,” she said.

The opportunity to join her dad wasn’t presented with much fanfare. “I was helping him on the combine at night after my other job. We got done, and we’re sitting in the kitchen. I had a bad week at work, and I sort of jokingly said to him, ‘Boy, do you want another employee?’”

Little did she know that her father would soon be presented with a business opportunity when a landlord they were friendly with decided to retire and sell his land. “Dad said, ‘Well, if we take this land, are you going to come back?’ and I said, ‘If you think we can make it work, yeah, let’s try it.’”

There were definitely some worries heading into this business deal. “I was pretty nervous,” she said. “I know we had butted heads in the past, and we hadn’t been working together. So now we’re going to work together, and who knows what’s going to happen.”

When asked about the friction between the two of them, Amanda laughs. “They say the best thing of being on a family farm is the family, and the worst thing about being on a family farm is the family. He’s more old school, and I'm looking at some more new stuff.” But in that friction is a solid basis of trust which leads to solid collaboration in the farm. “It’s good to have differing opinions, because sometimes what one of us wants to do is probably a terrible idea, and the other one says so.”

According to Amanda, Ray isn’t the type of person to sit down and chat for an interview. But we did want to know how Ray viewed Amanda being on the farm. So we asked her.

“I think if you asked him if I was in the room, he'd have to play the hardball. ‘She’s a pain in the butt,’ he’d say. But other people tell me he says he’s glad to have me back, so we’ll go with that,” she said with a laugh and a half-smile.

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