North Dakota farmers are heading into harvest with diesel prices above $5 per gallon, fertilizer costs still elevated, and renewed trade tensions with Canada adding another layer of uncertainty.

In this episode of The Backstory, NDNC reporter Michael Standaert and host Sabrina Halvorson discuss how those pressures are affecting farmers and why the consequences extend beyond the farm.

North Dakota requires 60% voter approval for school bond measures. That threshold recently came into play in both Bismarck and Surrey, where bond proposals received more than 58% support but failed to reach the supermajority needed to pass. In Surrey, the measure fell short by just five votes.

In this episode of The Backstory, NDNC reporter Michael Standaert and host Sabrina Halvorson discuss why school bond measures can receive support from a majority of voters and still fail.

Standaert looked at school bond elections over the past decade and found 48 failed measures, including 13 that came within five percentage points of the 60% threshold. He also discusses what the requirement means for districts trying to address aging buildings, accessibility needs and other facility improvements, and how recent changes to when bond elections can be held affect districts that want to return to voters.

“In most voting, it would have passed, but with the 60% requirement, those still didn’t pass.” — Michael Standaert, North Dakota News Cooperative reporter

Read the full article here:

https://www.newscoopnd.org/school-districts-struggle-to-sell-bond-measures/

In part two of this Backstory interview, conservation photographer Mike Forsberg and Andrew Caven of the International Crane Foundation reflect on the North Dakota portion of their completed 2,500-mile bicycle journey from Texas to Canada.

Forsberg describes riding through the Missouri Coteau southeast of Bismarck as moving through a painting, with rolling hills, wildflowers, grazing cattle and calling birds. Caven says the area was among the most ecologically intact landscapes they encountered during the trip.

But elsewhere in the state, they saw the effects of continued grassland and wetland conversion. Caven says some birds and plants he expected to find in northwestern North Dakota did not appear until the cyclists reached Saskatchewan.

The conversation also examines the importance of restoring native plants. Caven explains how grasslands dominated by introduced species differ from native habitat and can affect the birds and other wildlife that depend on them.