Livestock Development In South Dakota

development in this state. Q & A agrees with Mistry that two major “push” factors that are making producers in his part of Europe look elsewhere are tough environmental laws and limited agricultural land that is costly and increasingly hard to find. “There’s no doubt that the environmental laws in northern Europe are a lot tighter than they are here,” says Van der Sluis. “It’s almost impossible in the Netherlands to find places where you would be more than half a mile from a village or from a neighbor. In such crowded places, it’s only expected that good policies should include environmental laws, and oversight of these operations.” It’s also been quite lucrative for producers who own their land in countries like the Netherlands to sell out in recent years. With land selling for tidy sums and with additional cash in hand from the sale of cattle, equipment, and the quota that allows them to market milk, those producers can reinvest in a dairy in South Dakota. Van der Sluis notes that those interested in settling in South Dakota are not easily discouraged by rising land values, because they generally do not need much land for for their operations. On the other hand, rising land values could make it easier for existing South Dakota farmers to borrow the money needed to expand their own dairy or livestock operations. Mistry points out that is already happening, although it’s perhaps less visible than the immigrants arriving from other nations or other states. “We have South Dakota producers who have successfully expanded their operations.”