There was something for everyone at Central Plains Dairy Expo March 28-30 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. More than 4,000 dairy producers and industry allies attended the event, representing 32 states and four countries, including Canada, France and Ireland.
The event began with a welcome reception and evening performance by country music artist Sara Evans, followed with two full days of networking and learning with seminars that ranged in interest from Spanish-speaking to herd health and on-farm management to risk mitigation for milk prices and global influences on the market.
The I-29 Corridor became a hotspot for growth in the dairy industry in the early 2000s, and the trend has only continued. But as dairy producers consider what the next decade looks like for farming in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, the idea of continued prosperity is met cautiously with concerns that nearly all producers across the nation have.
“Labor has been top-of-mind for a long time,” said Christina Zuiderveen of Black Soil Dairy in Iowa. “There just aren’t enough people to fill the skilled positions in the large animal world.”
Additionally, Zuiderveen stressed her concerns for the rising costs of operation and interest rates.
“We have a whole generation within the industry who has never managed through high interest rates and that type of economic situation,” she said.
Zuiderveen was a panelist alongside David Elliot of Drumgoon Dairy in South Dakota and Tim Czmowski, retired vice president of operations in the Midwest for Agropur Dairy Cooperative, during Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative’s session, “Dairy in the next 10 years: Perspectives from farmers and processors.”
Dairy producer Christina Zuiderveen (second from right) speaks during a panel discussion at Central Plains Dairy Expo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Zuiderveen was joined by moderator Lucas Sjostrom (from left), David Elliot and Tim Czmowski. Photo by Jenn Coyne.
Elliot, whose family emigrated from Ireland to South Dakota in 2006, expressed confidence for the dairy corridor’s future despite the setbacks that consolidation has on rural communities.
“This area is unique in that it’s one of the last frontiers of big fields and gives agriculture a full swing,” Elliot said. “But with expansion and consolidation, we have to work with others to show CAFOs can provide benefits – like jobs and dollars in the local community. We have to invest in small communities because there are people living in rural America who are servicing dairy and an important part of the dairy industry.”
While the views expressed were from producers and processors in the Upper Midwest, the outlook for the industry in other pockets throughout the country may be similar. As Czmowski shared, processing capacity increases when strong milk production growth is evident.
For example, Czmowski noted that every two years there is a need to process 330 million pounds of cheese based on the notion that the average American consumes 40 pounds of cheese each year. A processing facility in Hull, Iowa, processes 3 million pounds of milk each day to create 1 million pounds of cheese; 9 million pounds of milk for 100 million pounds of cheese at another plant in Lake Norden, South Dakota.
“We know there’s more need for processing because of the desire to produce milk,” he said. “But we have to go beyond I-29.”
The group also spoke on the importance of the export market, innovations and the value sustainability has in the marketplace. While there will certainly be challenges in the years ahead for the U.S. dairy industry, Czmowski, Elliot and Zuiderveen relayed a hopeful tone for their peers at Central Plains Dairy Expo.
“We’ve approached things in the past from predecessors, which were traditional European dairy farms,” Elliot said. “We have to innovate to be American dairy farmers.”
