Red River Valley Potato Growers Association was organized in 1946 by a handful of concerned potato growers in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota who felt the area’s potato industry needed to be represented.  In 1948 the growers built the building that still houses the association’s offices in East Grand Forks, MN today. With the inclusion of potato growing areas outside the immediate Red River Valley, the association changed its name to the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association (NPPGA) in 2001.  In 2022, NPPGA rebranded and changed its name to Northland Potato Growers Association (NPGA). 

The association was originally established to work for its members in the areas of research, promotion, marketing, communication, and legislation.  Seventy years later the mission remains much the same.  It didn’t take long after its founding that the association boasted 660 grower members, but as farm sizes increased over the years, the number of members decreased.  Today there are about 200 grower members. 

NPGA operates two research sites, one for non-irrigated potatoes near Grand Forks, ND and an irrigated site near Inkster, ND.  Both sites are made available to researchers from North Dakota State University, the University of Minnesota, and the USDA.The Red River Valley is the nation’s largest producer of red potatoes for the fresh market, this past year producing over 500 million pounds. The region as a whole is the fourth largest potato-producing region in the country, producing potatoes for all four of the major markets: chip, fresh, seed, and processed.