Sioux Falls, S.D. (KELO AM) - The 2017 Central Plains Dairy Expo takes place this Wednesday and Thursday, with a focus on marketing dairy products to consumers and expanding the reach of the region's ag industry.
Former South Dakota Ag Secretary Lucas Lentch says the whole industry comes down to marketing. "It's all about market access and about being a part of the conversation about how people consume dairy," Lentch told KELO Radio's Its Your Business. Dairy products are used in a variety of foods including milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, and Lentch adds that today's consumer wants more information than ever before about where their food comes from. "What dairy has going for it is a clean label. We are nature's most pure food."
Lentch credits much of the industry's success to the USA's current export deals. Currently, dairy farmers are exporting one out of ever seven day's worth of production by their operations. He says those deals come about thanks to relationships that have been developed by the US over time and by the US Dairy Export Council and dairy checkoff dollars.
When dairy succeeds, so does everyone else according to Lentch. "[The region] benefits. The communities that it touches across Minnesota, North Dakota, even down into Northwest Iowa. Our whole region is rich for the future and a sense of opportunity." That goes for farmers who don't directly associate with the industry as well, because chances are the crops that they grow will go to make food for diary producers to feed their herds.
The Central Plains Dairy Expo opens at the Sioux Falls Convention Center and Denny Sanford Premier Center on Wednesday. Exhibitors for the trade show include machinery, feed, and processing companies.
For more on the events and vendors slated to be at the show, click here.