PIERZ, Minn. — Diversification is a key part of what has helped make the Smude family successful in central Minnesota and beyond.

The family has their hands in agriculture processing, cattle production, ag construction and sales, including eight different LLCs — taking up a good chunk of the Pierz industrial park and spilling into their nearby farm.

It’s diversification that led Tom Smude to add sunflowers to his farm acres in 2009 in an effort to have a crop with better drought tolerance that he fed to his cattle herd that he’s been building since 2005.

The market for sunflower seed oil dried up shortly after the Smude family began pressing sunflowers to extract the oils on their central Minnesota farm. But rather than giving up, Tom Smude knew he had to find another use.

His daughter

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