AgriCULTURE 2025 |‘Baling’ in: Young Entrepreneur Scales Hay Operation from Accident to National Sales
What started as a dry summer and a borrowed baler has transformed into a growing hay business shipping across the country for Valley City, North Dakota farmer Gage Thompson.
Thompson Hay, based outside Valley City, began operation in 2021 almost by accident. Faced with drought and limited options, he turned to a dusty family machine.
“It was a really dry year that year,” Thompson said. “We had an old Heston swather my family used back in the dairy farm days. My dad and I went out, cut about three acres of grass hay, and it laid there for a week. It was more or less just about cutting it and enjoying the old machine.”
Then, without a clear plan, Thompson borrowed an old John Deere 24T square baler from a neighbor and got to work. That summer, he and his family baled 300 small square bales and picked them up by hand. Granted, 300 is not an incremental amount compared to how they did it back in the day. But for the first time it was more than enough.
“I thought, ‘This is the worst,'” he recalled with a laugh. “But we listed them on Facebook and within 30 minutes to an hour, they were all sold. I thought, we’ve got to do this on a larger scale.”
From there, the operation began to take shape. Thompson, then a sophomore at the University of Jamestown studying financial planning and wealth management, began dreaming of expansion.
“That whole winter, I was running numbers,” he said. “Trying to figure out what kind of loan we’d need to get a larger trailer, a better baler, and an accumulator for the skid steer.”
That financial background, he said, proved invaluable in forecasting, budgeting, and managing the business side of the farm.
“If I didn’t have that, I probably would have figured it out eventually,” Thompson said. “But understanding the economics of the business definitely gave me a better start.”
By year two, Thompson’s operation had grown to nearly 5,000 bales. The following season, he diversified further by investing in a newer swather and taking on custom haying jobs.
“We started doing some custom work, which helped with cash flow,” he said. “That year, the yields were better because of rain, but the competition picked up too. We were starting to hit the threshold of our local market.”
That’s when Thompson realized he needed a way to reach beyond North Dakota. The turning point came with a bale bundler that allowed him to package 14 small square bales into a single bundle for long-distance shipping.
“That machine allowed us to scale from 5,000 bales to 50,000,” he said. “Now we’re shipping all across the nation.”
His hay—primarily high-quality, horse-grade bales—now travels as far as Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and Florida.
“It’s kind of wild,” Thompson said. “A lot of it’s going 1,400 to 1,800 miles. Additionally, we’ve got a good freight broker who helps us get decent rates to these places.”
But tapping into distant markets wasn’t easy. Thompson did it the old-fashioned way—with grit and a phone.
“Shoot, I probably over 300 phone calls this past winter,” he said. “Maybe even more. Just trying to get our foot in the door.”
His efforts are paying off. Today, Thompson Hay serves customers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and Florida.
“The small square bale market is a niche,” he said. “There’s not a lot of money in round bales, and not much more in big squares. But people with high-dollar horses are willing to pay for quality hay, and they’ll ship it from anywhere.”
“Now, finished with school, it was to the point where I was at the fork in the road,” he said. “Work a typical 9-5 or grow something sustainable. We just completely dove headfirst into it and got to work.”
Though new to owning and scaling a hay business, Thompson said his family’s background has shaped his work ethic. “My family has a lot of experience with putting up hay,” he said. “But this has been a new adventure for us.”
Thompson’s primary goal now is improving hay quality. “We’ve been looking at different techniques to further separate us from others,” he said. “For us it always been about learning and improving quality. That’s what I’d like to continue to see.”
Looking ahead, Thompson has his sights set on continued improvement—not just in quantity, but quality.
“We’ve been looking into alternative options and ways to speed up the curing process,” he said. “Up here, the humidity can be tough. We’re trying to cut, cure, and bale in three-and-a-half to four days to preserve quality.”
As the business grows, so does his vision. Thompson’s goals include increasing margins, increasing quality over more acres, and always keep learning.
“I’d like to see us improve quality every year,” he said. “And just keep building something sustainable and unique.”
Though his family has roots in dairy-quality alfalfa production, Thompson is carving his own path. Since graduating, he’s committed full-time to the hay business—no alternative plan in sight.
“It was a fork-in-the-road moment,” he said. “We just dove headfirst into it.”
And so far, the risk has paid off.
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While Thompson started with borrowed and aging equipment from family and neighbors, his business has grown tremendously since 2021.
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Thompson credits his degree in financial planning and wealth management with giving him a firm understanding of the economics associated with started a business.
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Thompson’s goal is to continue to grow in his niche of producing high quality hay.
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Valley City, ND farmer Gage Thompson has made a business out of shipping high quality hay all over the United States.
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While Thompson has had much success in his business, it has not been without hardship as winter 2022 brought extensive damage to barns, limiting storage and ruining hay.
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While Thompson has had much success in his business, it has not been without hardship as winter 2022 brought extensive damage to barns, limiting storage and ruining hay.
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While Thompson has a farming background, he has built his hay business to expand across multiple states and notes he spends many days and weeks calling potential customers across the country.
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While Thompson has a farming background, he has built his hay business to expand across multiple states and notes he spends many days and weeks calling potential customers across the country.
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While Thompson has a farming background, he has built his hay business to expand across multiple states and notes he spends many days and weeks calling potential customers across the country.
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