Without sales to three former Soviet Union states, Howard Dahl's company would not be the world's leader in sugar beet harvesting equipment.

"We'd just be the largest in the U.S. and a fraction of the size we are now," said Dahl, president of Amity Technology, which has machinery manufacturing plants in Wahpeton and Wishek.

Dahl said his company has had about $110 million in sales to Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine since 1991. So far this year, he said, his company has had $21 million in sales there, and he expects as much as $30 million in sales in 2007.

He said nearly 100 jobs at his North Dakota factories depend on the sales to the three former Soviet Union states.

Dahl said he helped establish contacts for a North Dakota trade delegation that has been in the three countries for the past two weeks drumming up business.

The 16-member group, representing seven North Dakota agribusinesses, has met with equipment buyers and distributors, said Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who led the mission. The group is slated to return to North Dakota on Saturday.

Dalrymple said the potential for farm-related businesses in North Dakota is huge in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.

"They are short 180,000 farm machines in Russia alone," he said in a telephone interview Thursday from Ukraine.

Companies with representatives who made the trip are Duratech Industries of Jamestown, WCCO Belting of Wahpeton, Gates Manufacturing Inc. of Lansford, Sund Manufacturing Inc. of Newburg, Brandt Holdings Inc. of Fargo, Titan Machinery of Fargo and SolarBee of Dickinson.

Dalrymple said that WCCO Belting has made a deal to supply swather belts for a Kazakhstan manufacturing company. Titan Machinery has found a distributor to sell its equipment and parts throughout Kazakhstan.

SolarBee, which manufactures solar-powered water circulators, landed a $220,000 deal, said Chris Harris, the company's vice president of international marketing. He said the deal could spur even more business.

"It's really important to establish a network," Harris said.

Mark Hatloy, with Sund Manufacturing, said he developed several leads for his company's combine headers and grain handling equipment.

Susan Geib, executive director of the North Dakota Trade Office, said the three former Soviet Union states already are North Dakota's fourth-largest trading partner. North Dakota companies had $56 million in sales there in 2005, she said. In the first six months of this year, sales hit $43 million.

Dahl said his company saw a market in the countries as early as the 1970s, when it was doing business in Eastern Europe.

"It was a strategic matter," he said of doing business in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. "We realized the biggest farms in the world are there."