The Minnesota-based Riverview dairy corporation held a public meeting in Hazel last night to give details about the new CAFO it hopes to build in Hamlin County. This factory dairy will be a whopper:
The proposed 86 million dollar facility will span over 250 acres and will hold over 12,000 cows. The land will be provided by Governor Noem’s brothers Rock and Robb Arnold [Renee Ortiz, “Hamlin Residents Hold Public Meeting for Proposed $86 Million Dairy Farm,” KELO-TV, 2023.10.03].
Also a whopper: Riverview’s tales about its workforce:
Representatives with Riverview stressed they plan to buy, sell and resource labor locally.
We would also prefer for custom app manure applicators, custom hay cutters, people who drive truck to haul our silage, people to haul our milk. We would prefer to work with locals to provide those services for us as well,” said Cassidy Watzke, Riverview representative [Ortiz, 2023.10.03].
98.3% of Hamlin County’s labor force already have jobs. Only 63 out of Hamlin County’s 3,757 laborers were out of work in August. The milk lobby reminds us that a majority of its milkers are immigrants. South Dakota ag-industrialist and political insider Walt Bones has said South Dakota needs more foreign-born workers because Americans don’t want to do the long, grueling work of milking cows.
A giant factory dairy may bring more jobs to Hamlin County, but it will have to bring lots of immigrants to do those jobs. It’s good to see that Noem’s relatives recognize that reality.
Related Riverview Roster: Riverview has five operating dairies—two in Marshal County by Veblen, one in southwest Hamlin County, one in neighboring Clark County, and one in Corson County—and another soon to start operations in southeast Clark County.
Its the most American thing to do.. self deal on plantstions.. I mean farms and when its no longer legal to simply kidnap laborers from other countries you set up tough immigration laws so they work in fear of deportation so you can still exploit them.. not as much as the good ol’ days but hey. ‘Massah’s take what they can get nowadays.
So any co2 sequestered with the pipeline will be offset by all the dairy cattle releasing methane?
Labor Related: For your Governor Noem.
Critical Race Theory question of the day for SD high schoolers. (Ingest and discuss)
“How much “white guilt” is exuded in the assertion that chattel slavery was good for those slaves involved?”
. . . and many more children to surrounding schools? In all this planning, are the school districts also being given a chance to plan and know the new needs that this influx will mean to them? Will schools have the ability to absorb/pay for that expansion BEFORE they can count the heads that show up for school day 1?
O:
At the rate that South Dakota pays teachers and support staff, I highly doubt that the ESL resources will be even remotely sufficient in surrounding school districts, nor will there be enough teachers. They can do what so many other struggling school districts are doing, bringing in international teachers, but that process is neither easy nor for the faint of heart.
Take a look at Huron, or Elkton for inspiration. I know both of those districts have had an influx of immigrant children.
In the next ten years precision fermented milk will disrupt the US dairy industry. Riverview is building a temple to obsolescence. Riverview might as well build a horse buggy factory. 80% of milk sales are B to B, so consumer choices will not matter. Milk is 90% water so is very easy to create using precision fermentation.
Milk via precision fermentation will not have hormones, steroids, or pesticides in the milk. Precision fermented milk will not require continuing dairy industry subsidies. Precision fermented milk production will not require sewage lagoons, manure handling, or lead to runoff and algae blooms in our lakes and rivers. Of course the US agriculture industry HATES change and will wrap itself around congress for ‘protection’, a ‘level play field’, and imaginary ‘threats to the food supply’ before the blowing up of their economic model.
John is, as usual, right on point.
PS – Internal combustion aircraft fuel from ethanol is also a temple to obsolescence. Electric powered aircraft and electric drone taxis are already in use.
“But it’s not my money.” – Warren Buffett
Capitalism follows the way of the dinosaurs: get BIG; then die. If the US were truly a free market, incentivizing this doomed growth would not happen.
O-well one thing Hamlin High and area schools can do to adjust to the children of immigrants who will soon be attending is to add soccer ro rheir list of sports offered. It may mean another state championship for Hamlin High.
Does anyone know the existing workforce demographics of the dairies in Marshal County, Hamlin County, Clark County, and Corson County? Based on many of the previous comments it seems assumed that dairy workers are primarily immigrants. Are workers children not getting a proper education? Are these workers getting the ESL training desired/needed?
I’m asking anyone who is informed and know the answers.
The most common ethnicity among dairy farm workers is White, which makes up 65.7% of all dairy farm workers. Comparatively, 24.3% of dairy farm workers are Hispanic or Latino and 4.0% of dairy farm workers are Black or African American.
https://www.zippia.com/dairy-farm-worker-jobs/demographics/#
What is informed is that large scale production agriculture jobs are not the American Dream they used to be, Maybe Dairy work has a different hue, but the macro situation is pretty clear.
Nobody drops that kind of cash in the middle of the prairie without a ‘Plan B’ for their labor force.
Although the well funded beauty of our Sow Queen does have a long list of out of state MAGA sexual predators that would love a chance to move into her neighborhood as long as she doesn’t build a fence too high they cant get a peek..
Mark, I would expect H-2A visas would be the “plan b” to get needed labor into SD when people do not flock for the hard work and low pay.
From Dakota Scout article..
“Once operational, Watzke said the project would provide 45 jobs each making between $50,000 and $90,000 per year.
“We do actively recruit in the United States and Mexico,” she said.
When salaries are touted, I seldom see the job requirements/expectations also listed. How many hours ad day; how many days a week; what level of physical exertion . . . ? I have farmer friends and family that decry their inability to hire help — even for good wages — but when the reality of the job is fully laid out, not finding applicants makes more sense.
I agree O. No one puts the requirements and expectations on the same line as salary and hours. Do you think that’s by design?
Is Riverview classed as a small business? Interesting that Clark was just designated a HUBZone by SBA.