Ag secretary, others focus on keeping Faulk County strong

17 Oct 2012


September 30, 2012  |  BY SCOTT WALTMAN swaltman@aberdeennews.com

Faulkton — The prospect of spurring economic development was enough to lure about 60 Faulk County residents from their homes and combine cabs to a meeting at which they discussed how to nurture a community that offers opportunities and jobs.

The meeting also attracted several speakers, including S.D. Agriculture Secretary Walt Bones.

The gathering, though, was neither the beginning nor the end of the process.

Joel Price, who also attended the meeting, is the superintendent of Faulkton schools and one of the people working with the economic development effort. It was about two years ago when community leaders started working with representatives from the state Dakota Rising and Dakota Resources programs, he said, though folks in Faulk County were discussing how to keep region strong long before then.

The Dakota Rising program is designed to cultivate entrepreneurs, strengthen businesses and sustain communities. The Dakota Resources program’s aim is similar, though slightly different. It works to stimulate financial and human investment in communities that are willing to work to support themselves.

Sunday’s gathering was a way to generate ideas about how Faulk County can remain a relevant town, Price said.

“Eventually, we want those ideas to become reality, but we know that takes time,” Price said during a break in the four-hour meeting at the community center.

Nothing’s been finalized yet, but those who have been working to encourage economic development in Faulk County have a solid lead, Price said. A person with ties to the area is talking about bringing a business to Faulkton that could initially offer 50 new jobs, he said. And that number could ultimately double or triple, he said.

That would be an ideal way to offer people who grew up in the Faulkton area and moved away, and who now want to return, the chance to do so.

Beth Davis works with the Dakota Rising program. If South Dakota young people what to leave their hometowns and experience life elsewhere, that’s fine, she said. About a third who leave never return, she said.

Another third stay in the town in which they were raised. And the final third leave and come back, she said. For them to do that, though, there must be jobs.

While Faulkton’s economic development push isn’t aimed exclusively at agriculture, the ag sector is a vital part of the economy of any rural South Dakota town. And that’s why Bones was invited to speak at the event.

Agriculture is the only industry that continually invests in rural communities, Bones said. And a strong ag economy has kept unemployment rates low in the Dakotas while unemployment has climbed to 10 percent or higher in many other states.

Even with the drought, the United States will see its eighth-largest corn harvest in history, Bones said. And, he said, the world will continue to look to American farmers as reliable suppliers of safe food.

The impact of a single dairy cow on the South Dakota economy is $14,000, Bones said. The equitable total for a sow is $6,400, he said. But for a head of beef cattle, it’s only $1,700. He said that’s because cattle aren’t slaughtered and processed in South Dakota. But he noted that that could be getting close as he heard the news about Northern Beef Packer’s test kill last week. The plant on the southern edge of Aberdeen is not yet open, but plans to eventually process 1,500 head of cattle a day, five days a week. Northern Beef Packers is a prime example of value-added agriculture that boosts the state’s economy, Bones said.

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