South Dakota Calls
It's not the time to start farming in U.S., farmers say

South Dakota is head hunting dairy farmers in the Netherlands and Canada and encouraging them to set up operations in their state.

Michael Held, director of the South Dakota Farm Bureau, said his organization encouraged three new dairy farmers from the Netherlands to come to South Dakota in the past three years.

Sonja and Fredo Verpaaen, of the Netherlands, arrived in South Dakota last November. They started with 35 cows and already have 400 head. They chose the U.S. over Canada because of our quota system.

"We would do it again," Sonja Verpaaen says. We don’t like the quota system. It’s not possible to grow as fast as you want. In the Netherlands we didn’t have a future."

She says that now is not the time to start up a farm in South Dakota because cow and feed prices are high and milk prices are low at about $11 per 100 lbs. The Verpaaens, however, locked into a contract for 60 per cent of their milk at $14.80 per 100 lbs.

She added that the big surprise in start up costs occurred when construction costs ran over budget. On the upside, the state government helped them find a location to farm, helped them find a contractor and helped them get containers through customs, she said. "They help a lot."

Dairy cows have dropped in this state from 285,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 100,000 today and as of last year the state needed to pump up those numbers by another 100,000 to allow dairy plants to operate at full capacity, said state secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel. A new processing plant being built in the state needs 65,000 new cows in the area.

"The main reason (cow numbers dropped so dramatically) is most were small 25- to 30-head dairies and they got out of the business in the past two decades," Michael Held said.

South Dakota dairy farmer Ferdy Zirbel agrees. Farmers got older and didn’t want to work so hard and didn’t want to work seven days a week, he said.

Zirbel runs a 120-head dairy farm with three brothers and says that since the price of milk dropped three months ago to $11 per 100 lbs., fleeing Canada for the American dream "I don’t think is a good idea."

But that’s a short term view. Last year’s milk prices were at $13.50 per 100 lbs. They dropped slightly and dropped again when the Farm Bill was announced several months ago, Zirbel said. "Right now we’re at a little less than break even."

He adds that the price of good alfalfa is high at (US) $120 to $180 per ton. Corn costs (US) $2.25 per bushel and the cost of a new heifer ready to freshen was (US) $1,800 last spring, he said. Grain prices have increased since the interview.