South Dakota Welcomes
European Dairy Delegation
MILBANK, S.D. Dairy producers from the Neth
erlands and Belgium are considering selling their dairy
operations in Europe and moving to South Dakota to
dairy. They spent time recently touring dairies and
cheese factories and talking to dairy industry insiders
about what it would take to set up shop in the Upper
Midwest.
On Thursday, the Valley Queen Cheese Factory and
the Midwest Dairy Institute gave the Europeans a
taste of South Dakota hospitality with a reception and
dinner at the Chalet Educational and Visitor Center
(Continued from Page 32)
Some producers say their herd is “closed” so they
don’t need to vaccinate.
In this day of high cattle numbers and movement of
people and cattle between farms, I don’t believe that a
“closed” herd is possible or at least not worth taking
the risk that this assumption involves.
With the testing and vaccines that are available
today, there’s really no reason to continue to see “BVD
disasters.”
Quality Poured
Concrete
Specializing:
• Bunker Walls
BVD
on the MDI campus. Many local leaders and business
people were in attendance.
The after-dinner program included comments by
South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Larry Gabriel
and Dairy Development Specialist Roger Scheibe.
Both men echoed the importance of increasing the
number of dairy cows in the state to keep both crop
producers and processing plants viable. Gabriel em
phasized the importance of “capturing the value” that
exists in our raw agricultural products before we ship
them out of state. He believes strongly that increasing
livestock numbers in a responsible way is a large part
of the solution.
The Europeans are considering moving to South
Dakota because of the pressures exerted upon them by
ever-increasing urban and suburban populations in
their homeland. For the most part, they run small
family dairies with 100 cows or less.
Milbank has a fine tradition of welcoming immi
grants and helping them build new lives in America.
The visitor center where the reception was conducted
was donated by the families of Alfred Nef and Alfred
Gonzenbach. The “Alfreds” were themselves immi
grants from Switzerland who moved to Milbank in
1929 to found the Valley Queen Cheese Factory.
TOLTZFUS
ONCRETE
STRUCTION
17-423-6974
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