WATERTOWN, S.D. — Dozens of attendees gathered at the South Dakota Governor’s Agricultural Summit in Watertown, July 18-19, to discuss topics such as the farm bill, South Dakota trade, commodity markets and the beef and dairy industries.

This conference brings people from all aspects of the industry together in one place.

“Agriculture by far is our largest industry in South Dakota. When we are all working together, we are unstoppable. It’s when we are fractionated in a state that’s, you know, becoming more urban, that we get into problems. So, we all need to work together to do the best we can for our state and to feed the world,” said Hunter Roberts, Secretary of the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

One of the speakers at the conference was Luke Lindberg, President and CEO of South Dakota Trade, who spoke about the state’s new international trade office and the opportunities available for agricultural exports to new markets world-wide.

“A little of what I will be sharing is output from our recent steering committee meeting where we brought together industry leaders from around the state to talk about which products are priorities for them, which markets are priorities for them, and what are some of their pain points,” Lindberg said. “So today is a little bit of a discussion around how do we continue to promote these products that are important, promote them to the right markets and then again address some of those pain points that are out there.”

Lindberg also shared tips for navigating export challenges such as

the war in Ukraine.

“So, we are here to help them navigate these things,” Lindberg said. “Transportation continues to be an issue, we have a lack of access to rails in South Dakota that we are trying proactively to find new solutions for rail access, so there’s a number of different areas where I think non-tariff barriers is another example of areas where we need to continue to find those friendly markets where we can ship our products and diversify away from other markets where maybe they aren’t so friendly.”

One of the commodity markets most affected by the war in Ukraine is

sunflowers

.

“Russia and Ukraine are the two largest producers of sunflowers in the world, North Dakota and South Dakota are the two largest producers of sunflowers here in the United States,” Lindberg said. “So certainly, there is an opportunity for sunflower oil and sunflower sales overseas as that opportunity arises.”

However, the war is also

creating higher input costs

for American producers.

“Russia and Ukraine also produce quite a bit of fertilizer, so input costs are directly impacted when things are unable to flow in the way they should from a normal supply chain operation,” Lindberg said. “So, there’s both positives and upsides, but also challenges that come when things like this occur.”

Topics of the beef industry such as traceability and

lab grown meat products

were also discussed at the conference.

Todd Wilkinson, president of National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, advocated for a voluntary program, rather than a mandatory one, for electronically tracing livestock.

“I think all of us believe in furthering the industry, but the government telling us what to do and when to do it is always difficult and farmers and ranchers are a notoriously independent bunch and they’ll do what is good for the industry, but they don’t want to be told that they have to do it,” Wilkinson said. “Let us choose how to do this and make the right choices.”

Another hot topic in the industry that Wilkinson discussed is cell-based products, also known as lab grown meat.

“I shudder to even consider it meat because if you are growing something in a big vat, I question whether it’s real meat,” Wilkinson said. “But how it would impact the industry is suddenly we have the animal rights activists saying ‘this is the best thing that there is because you don’t have to kill animals and you don’t have to have animals grazing,’ well if you take the animals off the grazing lands across the United States, suddenly we are going to become a problem with global warming issues because cattle are a great mechanism for turning carbon into meat and that’s a big impact.”

Through this event, the speakers say they hope attendees not only walk away with new information, but also meet other people involved in the industry.

“I am hoping they learn a couple things for sure, but I am also hoping that they meet some new people, learn some new discussions,” Roberts said. “I always love the networking side of things, I think it’s a great opportunity to talk and talk different issues off the mic, I think it is a great opportunity, I love that part of this conference.”

On the second day of the event, attendees were also able to learn more about the Lake Area Technical College’s agricultural programs and facilities as well as learn about the dairy industry through a tour of the new

Valley Queen Cheese

expansion project.