Minnesota tour Northarvest growers host visitors from around the world

By Jeff Beach | Agweek

PERHAM, Minn. — Northarvest Bean Growers got a chance to tell the world about its edible bean production.

Otter Berry Farm, operated by Cordell and Kris Huebsch near Perham, Minnesota, hosted a group of 30 representatives of foreign governments on Sept. 22, 2022.

The attaches spent a week touring farms, research sites and agribusinesses across the state. Visits ranged from Hormel and soybean farms in the southeast to sugarbeet farms and processing in the Red River Valley.

At Otter Berry, participants on the tour learned about kidney beans and the Northarvest edible bean commodity group, and the agritourism perspective of the farm, which includes berry picking, selling pumpkins and gourds and a corn maze.

“I just love having people come out to see how we do things here,” said Cordell Huebsch, a Northarvest director. “Not everybody knows about dark red kidney beans. It’s kind of an obscure crop.”

Eric Samuelson, president of Northarvest, was among the other officials from the group.

“Different cultures require different types of dry beans,” Samuelson said.

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