North Dakota's anti-corporate farming law was put in place 75 years ago to protect the state's agricultural heritage. But a Minnesota businessman and his group say the law is unconstitutional, outdated and does nothing to protect the ducks.

The state on Thursday asked Southeast District Judge James Bekken to force James Cook to give up about 1,800 acres of property in Cavalier, Griggs and Ward counties.

The state says Cook, through his nonprofit Crosslands Inc., bought three parcels of land without government approval, the most recent in 2003 and 2004. The state sued two years ago after Cook ignored Gov. John Hoeven's order to get rid of the land.

The 68-year-old Minneapolis precious-metal dealer said he purchased his first property in North Dakota in 1980, "for the purposes of preserving wildlife and wetlands."

Cook, who grew up in Fargo, said the state is not doing enough to protect prime waterfowl habitat.

"We're wanting to win this for wildlife," Cook said Sunday.

The number of nonprofit groups allowed to buy land in North Dakota is limited under state law. The law, added to the state's ban on corporate farming in 1985, also requires government approval for land purchases, with the governor having the final approval.

Charles Carvell, an assistant state attorney general in Bismarck, said the anti-corporate farming law was passed in 1932.

"North Dakota's culture and heritage is family farms," said Carvell, who is representing the state in the case. "In 1932, the people in North Dakota felt that culture and heritage was worth protecting."

Carvell said he doesn't expect Bekken to rule on the case until late spring or early summer.

The state sued Cook in 2005, and he retaliated by filing a lawsuit in federal court challenging part of North Dakota's corporate farming ban. He argued that North Dakota is violating the U.S. Constitution's protection of interstate commerce by regulating nonprofit groups' land purchases.

A federal judge dismissed Cook's suit.

"They are making the same arguments they would have made in the federal case," Carvell said.

Rod Ustipak, managing director of Crosslands, said the group had no other option.

"The federal court ruled it was already in state court and didn't allow us to go into federal court," Ustipak said.

Ustipak, of Brainerd, Minn., said he also manages about 5,000 acres of wildlife refuge land in Minnesota.

Cook and Ustipak said North Dakota is the only state that does not allow private landowners to sell land to whomever they want.

"It's unconstitutional," Ustipak said.

Carvell said the law is intended to stop groups from buying large tracts of farmland and taking it out of production.

"North Dakota has had this law 70 some years, and it's not working," Ustipak said. "The family farm corporations now are as big as the corporations that they wanted to stop buying up all the land when the law was passed."

"In the 1930s, the whole Legislature was made up of farmers," Ustipak said. "They passed laws that benefited farmers. But they didn't have the foresight to see that all the prairie would be broken up and all the wetlands drained."

Cook said he would like to continue to purchase land in North Dakota for wildlife protection.

"We don't want productive farmland," Ustipak said. "We want the roughest, rockiest, wettest land that we can find."

Carvell said it's only the second time the state's law has been challenged. In 1945, a Fargo hospital owned by a Minnesota nonprofit bought land in Cass County to lease to farmers, but the state said it was illegal.

The Minnesota corporation sued the state but lost the case in the U.S. Supreme Court, Carvell said. The Minnesota nonprofit argued that North Dakota's law violated equal protection and due process, among other things.

"They didn't raise the commerce clause, so that issue is still ripe and is still on the table," Carvell said.