How Black Gold Farms strives to grow the perfect chip potatoes with data-driven sustainability
Walking the rows of newly planted chip potatoes at Black Gold Farms’ expansive site in Indiana, John Halveson notes that the crop is off to a robust start. Healthy green leaves sprout from the tilled, sandy soil. For the next few months, Halverson, a fourth-generation farmer, and his team at Black Gold Farms will use digital technologies to monitor and manage these fields not just by the week or by the day - but by the hour.
A leading US grower of quality potatoes - including chip and processing potatoes, fresh potatoes and sweet potatoes - Black Gold Farms is able to react quickly to disease, pests, water shortages or other potential issues because it is on the forefront of data-driven agriculture. With GPS in its tractors and digital mapping, along with probes and telemetry units in the fields, and dashboards that track everything from seeds to yields, its farm managers have up-to-the-minute data at their fingertips.
Black Gold Farms operates farms across a dozen US locations.
Black Gold Farms operates farms across a dozen US locations.
With all of that information, and a lot of hard work, Black Gold Farms operates farms across a dozen US locations - from its headquarters in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to the warmer geography of northern Florida. Eight of those farms specialize in chip potatoes. That 1,700-mile span lets the Halverson family choose the best soil for each potato variety and the ability to ship potatoes every day of the year.
Founded in 1928 on 10 acres in North Dakota by John Halverson’s great grandfather, A.E. “Hallie” Halverson, Black Gold Farms has a long history as an early adopter of technologies. It was one of the first farms in North Dakota to use a diesel-powered tractor. Now, nearly 100 years later, Black Gold uses GPS-guided tractors to generate digital maps of its fields for precision planting and application of crop-building inputs.
Black Gold uses data extensively, paying close attention to the size, shape, texture, temperature and other characteristics of top-quality potatoes.
Black Gold uses data extensively, paying close attention to the size, shape, texture, temperature and other characteristics of top-quality potatoes.
With nearly a dozen potato varieties planted across thousands of acres, Black Gold uses data extensively to operate efficiently and sustainably with close attention to the size, shape, texture, temperature and other characteristics of top-quality potatoes. After taking necessary precautions to protect privacy and security, Black Gold shares much of that data with its customers, which include some of the biggest brands in potato chips, frozen fries and wholesale foods.
Expanding into fresh and sweet potatoes
US potato farmers produced 20.65 million tons - or about 121 pounds per person in the United States - in 2025, according to the USDA. By one estimate, the global potato market will generate an estimated $124 billion in 2026.
Over the years, Black Gold Farms has expanded its agricultural footprint, both as part of a business-growth strategy and to fulfill the logistics of distributing truckloads of tubers. In 1986, it established its first crop outside North Dakota, in southwest Missouri. Then, in the early 2000s, Black Gold added fresh potatoes and sweet potatoes, which brought it to the fertile soils of the Mississippi Delta in northeast Louisiana.
To manage their multi-state operations, the Halversons themselves spread out. Chief Executive Officer Eric Halverson works from the homebase in Grand Forks, while his brother John, the Chief Farming Officer, relocated to Arkansas to be in close proximity to the farm’s fields in Missouri. Their father, Gregg Halverson [ck], oversaw much of Black Gold Farm’s expansion and experimentation, including raising Black Angus cattle for 20 years — hence the name 'Black Gold'. The farm eventually exited that business but kept the moniker.
The decision to expand beyond North Dakota came partly as a result of the harsh realities of the 'farm crisis' of the 1980s — caused by shifting consumer demand, industry consolidation and rising interest rates. But the move was also driven by Gregg's desire to increase potato production and farm efficiency by using Black Gold’s equipment more months of the year.
“I did a little tour of the eastern half of the United States,” he explains. “We settled on southeast Missouri.”
But the expansion strategy wasn’t popular with the Halversons’ local bank representative at the time. “He put his finger in my chest and said, ‘Gregg, if you can’t see all your farmland from your back porch, you’re farming too far away from home',” Gregg recalls. “But I said, ‘We’ve got to do something different.’ The balance sheet was going the wrong direction.”
Now, Black Gold grows potatoes in 10 states, and the chip potato industry is growing steadily, driven by the popularity of kettle-style potato chips and seemingly endless flavor profiles. “We happened to be at the right place at the right time,” says Gregg.
Field-by-field visibility
On a spring day, John drove north to the company’s 4,200-acre operation in Winamac, Indiana, to lend a hand with spring planting. It’s one of the farms on which Black Gold Farms grows some of the world’s best chip potatoes for leading brands.
The Winamac site was busy with trucks hauling seed potatoes for planting at approximately 75 irrigated plots in the area. In the office, John met with farm manager Craig Burton to review a digital dashboard with details of the seed potatoes being planted and field-by-field status.
Black Gold Farms’ tech infrastructure includes smartphones, laptops, drones, cloud services and a central data repository that aggregates data from a dozen different systems, including John Deere’s Operations Center. It was also a beta tester and early adopter of Syngenta’s Cropwise digital agriculture platform and uses the suite of Cropwise applications, including Financials, Protector, Imagery and Sustainability.
John Halverson logs into Cropwise Imagery each morning and throughout the day to keep an eye on crop health across locations.
John Halverson logs into Cropwise Imagery each morning and throughout the day to keep an eye on crop health across locations.
John Halverson logs into Cropwise Imagery each morning and throughout the day to keep an eye on crop health across locations. Cropwise Imagery uses the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a remote-sensing specification derived in part from satellite images, to gauge crop health from aerial or ground-level images. This visual dataset can also be used for variable-rate application of fertilizer or crop protection.
The farm managers - and John himself - use Cropwise Imagery to record pictures of the crops and first-hand observations. “If I’m in the field and see something interesting, I can snap a picture, geo-reference it, and put notes in there,” he says. “Then the farm sees that, too. It’s like a sharing platform where multiple people can see what’s going on without being in the field.”
Digital maps generated by GPS-guided tractors at planting are another way to observe the fields virtually. The maps can be divided into 'crop zones' and used to assess the potential productivity and spatial variability of each zone.
“This visual measure and contrast are highly correlated to yield potential,” says Bryan Bowen, Black Gold Farms’ Director of Agronomy. “This is a powerful indicator of how well the fields and varieties are performing on any day of the season without having to go to the field.”
The maps and other digital technologies are invaluable for monitoring the fields 24-7. But they only supplement the experienced eye of a farmer.
“There is no replacement for visiting the fields on a regular basis and assessing what is going on,” says Bryan. “Checking the soil environment where the roots are drawing water is essential. That means digging in the dirt and literally feeling the soil to judge where we are in terms of the water balance.”
Mining data with AI
The Halversons are already planning for what’s next. They’re modernizing the farm’s existing data repository by migrating to a next-generation platform that makes it easier to integrate and consolidate data from many different sources, according to Travis Allen, the farm’s Director of IT.
Black Gold Farms is also in the early stages of determining where and how to use artificial intelligence. AI assistants are being rolled out to the executive team, HR, agronomists, marketing and operations. For stronger data-privacy protection, Black Gold Farms is deploying licensed AI assistants in lieu of free consumer versions.
Early use cases for AI-powered bots include number-crunching in spreadsheets, email summaries and gleaning insights on optimal use of crop inputs. And, in a sign of what’s to come, Black Gold Farms is using its archive of data to train custom AI agents on potato growing.
“Our goal,’’ says Allen, “is to get these models matured to the point where they can predict yield and quality mid-season and give us the ability to influence our current season’s results.”
In pursuit of sustainability
Timely data is crucial for Black Gold’s ability to manage potato quality and logistics, but there’s another impetus for the company’s investment in digital technologies — its customers want that data, too. Black Gold shares data on seed quality, planting conditions, fertilizers, water usage, harvest details and more. “We sell data - and they get potatoes along with it,” says John Halverson. His joke isn’t far from the truth.
Metrics on sustainability are must-haves for Black Gold’s customers, both to meet compliance requirements and to promote that info as part of their consumer marketing. Potato chip manufacturers and food processors compile data on water usage, soil health, energy efficiency, biologicals and other measures to track the progress of their sustainability initiatives, benchmark against industry standards and meet consumer demand. Black Gold is part of the ecosystem feeding data into such efforts.
The more customers get this kind of valuable information, the more they want it. “As we collect data and provide it to our customers, it keeps raising the bar,” says Allen. “They just kind of expect it.”
Although Syngenta provides the secure Cropwise data platform, the information remains Black Gold’s proprietary data, to be shared only with the customers and third parties that Black Gold deems appropriate.
Black Gold also uses Cool Farm Tool, a not-for-profit platform for collecting field-level data on water, biodiversity and greenhouse gasses. And it uses Syngenta’s Cropwise Sustainability application to score and share its sustainability practices. The farm has an aggressive goal of becoming 100 percent regenerative by 2030, with a focus on soil health, watershed health, biodiversity and pest management.
To nurture soil health at Winamac, Black Gold follows a three-year crop rotation cycle — one season of chip potatoes followed by two years of corn or soybeans. It does that via sublease agreements with neighboring farms, which provides an added incentive for soil management because farmers are more inclined to renew lease agreements when they know their land is receiving the same level of care they give it themselves.
“A lot of these relationships go back 25 years or more,” says Shawn Zellers, a Black Gold agronomist based at Winamac. “The best way to keep a relationship going that long is to leave the field in better shape than when we initially rented it.”
In addition, Black Gold Farms’ sustainability practices include cover crops in some areas, between growing seasons, and precision use of crop protection enabled by digital mapping and variable-rate application. The cover crops support water management and protect against erosion, while providing wildlife habitat.
“We’re just trying to help the soil be as healthy as possible,” Shawn says, as he stands in the corner of a field with knee-high rye grass from last season’s cover cropping.
John Halverson, a fourth-generation farmer and CEO of Black Gold Farms.
John Halverson, a fourth-generation farmer and CEO of Black Gold Farms.
Shawn Zellers, Agronomist, Indiana Black Gold Farms.
Shawn Zellers, Agronomist, Indiana Black Gold Farms.
The perfect potato
Like its chip-producing customers, Black Gold is obsessed with potato quality. “I look at quality every day,” says John.
The chip potato varieties Black Gold cultivates include the Atlantic (originally developed by the USDA), Snowden (developed by the University of Wisconsin) and Mackinaw (developed by Michigan State University), as well as proprietary varieties for some customers. The farm also grows Russet Burbank potatoes, which are popular for making frozen French fries.
“What is more natural than a potato?” asks John. He points out that the basic potato chip, a staple of the American snack diet, is made with just three ingredients — potatoes, cooking oil and salt. “Potatoes are the perfect food,” he says.
John Halverson says the perfect chip potato should be two-and-a-half inches in circumference with shallow eyes and light, easy-to-peel skin.
John Halverson says the perfect chip potato should be two-and-a-half inches in circumference with shallow eyes and light, easy-to-peel skin.
And what makes the perfect chip potato? It’s two-and-a-half inches in circumference with shallow eyes and light, easy-to-peel skin, says John. It’s also dense with less water and produces a bright, white chip with no visible defects internally or externally.
Yet, consumer preferences sometimes change, and growers must be ready to respond. One of the latest trends: increased demand for single-serving snack food packages, caused Black Gold Farms to grow smaller chip potatoes to fit into downsized bags. “We’ve had to think differently and do things differently to accommodate what the customers needed,” says John.
Year-round operations
Unlike corn, potatoes are not dried prior to storage, so exacting conditions are necessary to maintain their edible qualities.
Black Gold Farms keeps its storage warehouses at a relatively high humidity of 95 percent to 100 percent with temperatures between 48 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit (8.9 to 10 degrees Celsius.) Under these conditions, its chip potatoes can be stored for months while retaining their crunchy goodness: size, shape, free of defects, and possessing 'high gravity', which refers to the starch content and low moisture that give potato chips their crispness.
Moving the potatoes requires a fleet of 18-wheelers covering many miles. The Halversons turned this challenge into an opportunity with the launch of Horizon Logistics in 2020, a trucking service that transports non-refrigerated, refrigerated, and frozen and processed potatoes.
John spends up to four months of the year traveling among the farm’s far-flung locations. He’s unable to be everywhere all the time, which is why digital tech has become so indispensable.
“It’s amazing to me,” he says. “If you ask me about a field in Florida, I feel pretty confident I can tell you what’s going on there without setting foot on it.”
That’s not small potatoes for Black Gold Farms.
How Black Gold Farms strives to grow the perfect chip potatoes with data-driven sustainability.
