​Is Riverview Farms good for North Dakota?

By Madeline Luke

mzlnd@yahoo.com

About 100 years ago the state of agriculture in North Dakota was pretty dire. Minnesota banks, grain mills, and railroads treated ND as a colony; they extracted our labor and natural resources for their own profit. After years of being on the bad end of a poor deal, farmers formed the Nonpartisan League (NPL) to pass laws which ensured that out of state corporations could never exploit North Dakotans again. Thanks to the most recent legislative session weakening the anti-corporate farming law, history is repeating itself.

Riverview Farms, LLP is a multi-state, vertically integrated organization with dairy and beef cattle operations in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, New Mexico and Arizona. It is not technically a corporation, but it is also far from a family run outfit — or based in North Dakota. They are proposing a $180 million, 25,000-cow dairy in Traill County named the Herberg Dairy, as well as a second facility, a $90 million, 12,500-head dairy in Wahpeton.

The last creamery in North Dakota shut down in 2023. Without an in-state processor, the 24 dairy farms remaining in the state must ship their milk to Minnesota or South Dakota or herd share, selling raw milk to local markets. The Riverview Farms representative at the Herberg Dairy open house said this project would save the dairy industry and jumpstart the local economy. When asked about the fate of the existing dairies, he replied ”They’re dead.”

Between 2012 and 2017, Minnesota lost 1,100 dairy farms. In that same time period, Riverview built three new Minnesota mega-dairies, a feedlot in South Dakota and expanded its calf and dairy operations to New Mexico and Arizona. Herd size and milk demand have remained consistent, but the number of farms are decreasing. Each time a corporate mega- dairy is built, existing dairies fail, their surrounding communities suffer and profits leave.

Dairy farms are notorious for guzzling water. Lactating cows require much more water than feeder cattle, anywhere from 28 to 50 gallons daily, according to various authorities. A permit for a million gallons a day in a state which has regular droughts should be concerning for surrounding municipalities and producers. Arizona has no water regulations for rural areas; Riverview Farm’s Arizona operations are under fire for dropping water levels in the Wilcox and Douglas Basins. In 2014, Riverview Farm’s plan for the Baker Dairy in Minnesota was dropped when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency asked for a full environmental review. Among other items, they wanted to know how water drawdown would affect existing crop and livestock farming in the area.

Manure management becomes increasingly problematic as an operation gets larger. The Herberg Dairy will be at least 10 times larger than any operation currently in the state and they are looking for 18,000 acres of land to accept their manure. The Century Code forbids local municipalities to provide any additional protection beyond what is allowed by state law.

”A dairy cow creates at least as much potentially toxic biological waste as 18 humans — some experts claim 20 or 25,” explained Dr John Ikerd, emeritus professor of agricultural economics at University of Missouri. “So that one 25,000-cow dairy will produce as much sewage as a city of 450,000 people, with no significant requirements for the treatment of waste.”

The real question that we have to ask ourselves is, do we want to support and encourage a dairy industry that allows farmers who have been working hard, often for generations, in North Dakota? Or do we want to enable (and sometimes even support with public dollars) animal factories that take our water, leave pollution and siphon profits out of North Dakota?