Northern Crops Institute (NCI) is a collaborative effort involving North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota to support the promotion and market development of crops grown in this four-state region. Leading the effort to establish northern-grown U.S. crops as the world's choice for food, feed and value-added applications, NCI provides an international meeting and learning center that brings together customers, commodity traders, technical experts and processors for discussion, education and technical services.

Northern Crops Institute focuses in two main areas:

• Technical education that teaches participants from around the world about northern-grown crops and their unique qualities and marketing and processing characteristics
• Technical services for the domestic and overseas markets, specializing in baking, durum milling, extrusion, feed processing, grain grading, laboratory analysis and pasta processing

Funding and partnerships come in many forms at NCI – foremost, through funding from the state legislatures of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, and check-off funding from agricultural commodity groups representing producers in these three states and Montana. NCI collaborates on a worldwide level with USDA/FAS, U.S. Wheat Associates, U.S. Grains Council, American Soybean Association and other professional groups to educate buyers and promote regional crops to buyers around the world.